AMD had the opportunity to participate at the Autodesk University conference last week in Las Vegas from the 13thuntil the 15thof November.

Autodesk University is a yearly conference, hosted by Autodesk, which connects more than 10,000 professionals from various industries across Construction, Manufacturing, Architecture, Engineering and Digital Content Creation. During the four days of learning, networking and knowledge sharing, AU was a great opportunity to showcase AMD’s strong commitment to professionals in these industries - and to engage with the broader Autodesk end-user community.

AMD’s participation at AU was co-sponsored with Dell - a longtime, valued partner in the AEC and Design & Manufacturing technology marketplace. AMD’s team ran product demos and presentations in Dell’s booth to showcase the strong value propositions of Dell/AMD-powered workstations for professional workflows.

Jamie Gwilliam, AEC Industry Lead at AMD, led a masterclass titled “The Catalysts for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.” which offered a fresh, global perspective of how various related technologies are rapidly changing modern AEC projects. A 30-minute workflow and technology presentations were also given throughout the day by the AMD Radeon Pro team that spoke about Radeon Pro WX workstation family & Dell Precision products.

AMD experts ran several technical workflow demonstrations to showcase how AMD Radeon™ Pro-equipped graphics workstations are driving innovation and unparalleled application interactivity during “GPU multitasking” scenarios such as concurrent 3D modeling, final rendering and video editing, where AMD Radeon™ Pro equipped workstations delivered powerful, robust acceleration for the range of Autodesk’s toolsets. This demo was conducted for AMD’s technology partners and customers to highlight the dramatic differences in GPU multitasking user efficiency when comparing two identical Dell Precision 7820 workstations – one built with AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 9100 graphics, and the second with an Nvidia Quadro P5000 graphic card. The demo clearly showed how AMD’s asynchronous compute capabilities dramatically improved user interactivity and productivity during heavy mixed workloads while running all applications at the same time such as Revit®, 3ds Max®, Enscape™, and Adobe® Premiere® Pro at the same time.

Other notable technology demos included the following Dell hardware configurations and use cases including the newest release of Radeon™ ProRender (2.3.403) running within Autodesk® 3ds Max® 2019.2, Autodesk® Revit®, Autodesk® VRED™, Autodesk® Inventor® and Enscape™3D:

AMD was also an official sponsor of the AR/VR meetup in the Forge Quad area that was a great opportunity to allow attendees to get practical, real-world guidance on VR and AR from our experts. Booth visitors had the chance to try out theVRexperience and engage with the demos for a chance to win a Radeon™ Pro WX 7100 graphics card.

Another collaboration within the show was at the BOXX Technologies booth where a chrome APEXX T3 workstation was displayed powered by the 2nd generation AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper 2990WX CPU to demo Autodesk® Revit® & V-Ray.

BOXX Technologies also showedanAPEXX Neutrino T workstation featuring AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 7100 graphics and a 32-core AMD® Ryzen™ Threadripper™ 2990WX , with capacity for up to four Radeon™ Pro graphics cards along with highly configurable memory and hard drives options to run a wide range of workloads from CAD, rendering, and visual effects (VFX), proving itself to be a well-balanced configuration for a variety of professional use cases.

LUXX Studios has only been around for 12 years, but it has already made a huge impact in Hollywood, providing visual effects work for large tentpole movies such as White House Down and Independence Day: Resurgence. Christian Haas and Andrea Block, founders of LUXX Studios, has continued building upon their successes, and is on their way to completing their very first full-length, animated feature titled “Manou the Swift”, an Ugly-Ducking-meets-Romeo-and-Juliet tale of an orphaned swift raised by seagulls, voiced by Kate Winslet and Willem Dafoe.

An Inside Look into LUXX Studio’s First Animated Movie

One of the biggest challenges for small, independent studios like LUXX is budget. Large, established players in the business can throw as much as $100 million or more at an animated film. LUXX has a budget of €8 million ($9.5 million USD), roughly 1/10 the budget typically allocated for a major animated production. They need to find efficiencies wherever they can so that they can make the film look amazing without breaking the bank.

This is where AMD comes in to the story. In production, LUXX utilizes Autodesk® 3ds Max®, Chaosgroup® V-Ray®, and Foundry’s® Nuke® along with several off-the-shelf plugins to assist with fluid and hair simulations. Such complex simulations can place a heavy load on a system, so to speed up their workflow, LUXX turned to AMD’s Ryzen™ Threadripper™ 1950X CPU and AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 7100 professional graphics card to help accelerate their content.

They saw an immediate difference upon using their new AMD powered workstations. Not only were artists able to complete their shots faster, they were able to complete them better. The extra time saved allowed them to try different versions of the same shot, allowing more creativity to flow, and producing a better film as an end result.

Manou the Swift Teaser Trailer

One other area where LUXX is leveraging the power of AMD is on their rendering side. LUXX’s previous rendering solution was a dual Intel Xeon based processor. The dual Intel Xeon E5-2620 CPUs took five hours to render a close-up of Manou, but when they switched their rendering to a single AMD Ryzen 7 1800X, the rendering time fell to under two hours per frame. This increase in power even enabled LUXX to reinstate shots that it had previously dropped on the grounds that they were too time-consuming to render.

Thanks to the stellar performance of AMD Radeon Pro professional graphics and AMD Ryzen and Ryzen Threadripper CPUs, LUXX Studios is completing their first animated feature faster and to a higher standard of quality than it thought possible. Read more about the benefits that AMD provides to LUXX Studios via the link below and be sure to check out Manou the Swift this autumn in a theater near you.

Warren Eng is a Product Marketing Manager for professional graphics at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied. GD-5

AMD has just announced the Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 workstation graphics card, delivering the best workstation graphics performance for under $10001. This new graphics card from AMD is based on the advanced “Vega” graphics architecture2 and comes equipped with specs and features to help accelerate your most demanding workloads. This includes incredibly fast cutting-edge HBM2 memory, up to 512 GB/s memory bandwidth, 4x DisplayPort 1.4 HDR Ready outputs with support for up to 4x 4K displays or a single 8K display and the performance needed to drive more demanding graphics workloads like virtual reality or photorealistic rendering.

There are several reasons why you should choose Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 over competing workstation and consumer graphics. According to a QA Consultants report commissioned by AMD, Radeon™ Pro delivers “the most stable drivers”3, enabling users to get the most productivity from their workstation. The Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 also includes certifications and optimizations on many of today’s most popular professional applications, which means you get the performance, stability and professional features enabled to drive your designs to completion.

When it comes to performance, the Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 workstation graphics card is no slouch. There are several instances where this card beats out the competition, including the more expensive Nvidia Quadro P5000. For example, Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 graphics’ rendering performance on Blender Cycles is up to 20% faster than the P5000 and up to 30% faster than the P4000 running the same test4. The Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 graphics also delivers greater performance in applications like Foundry’s Nuke, Adobe Premiere Pro, and Autodesk Maya, than NVIDIA Quadro P4000 and P50005. Many designers are also moving to VR to visualize their workflows and the Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 graphics delivers outstanding performance in VR, achieving higher scores in VRMark’s Cyan Room test than the competition.

Fig. 1. VRMark Cyan Room Benchmark. See footnote #6 below.

One of the most impressive advantages the Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 brings to the table over the competition is its multitasking capabilities. This is where the advanced “Vega” architecture really shines2. You can increase your productivity by doing more than one thing at once. For instance, you can render a model in the background while working on another design at the same time. Doing this on a competitive product is nearly impossible, but with the Radeon™ Pro WX 8200, you can easily do this without any issues and have an average 13x gain in performance over the competition while doing heavy GPU multitasking.

With the “most stable professional graphics driver” certifications and optimizations on many of today’s most popular professional applications, and amazing performance to boot, the Radeon Pro WX 8200 is the best professional graphics card available today for under $10001. Pre-order yours now on newegg.com with targeted product availability in September.

Warren Eng is a Product Marketing Manager for professional graphics at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied. GD-5

Cinema 4D users now have a powerful new way to create photorealistic imagery, thanks to MAXON Computer’s recent work with AMD. First integrated in 2017, AMD’s Radeon™ ProRender is an intuitive physically based GPU render engine – and in Cinema 4D R20, it has grown even more powerful, with new features like motion blur, subsurface scattering and multi-pass rendering designed to help it slot into modern production pipelines.

Being based on OpenCL™, the open standard for GPU computing, Radeon ProRender will work with virtually any combination of CPUs and GPUs on both Windows® and macOS® (via support for Apple® Metal® 2). However, as a leading proponent of OpenCL, AMD’s professional graphics cards are specially optimized for the job. First integrated in MAXON Cinema 4D R19, Radeon ProRender enables artists to create photorealistic imagery quickly and intuitively, adjusting only a small number of settings.

“Radeon ProRender is a fast, highly interactive way to render images,” says Oliver Meiseberg, MAXON’s Chief Product Officer. “Artists can achieve the results they like much faster, and present changes to clients. It saves a lot of time iterating on designs.”

Created by Makoto Tamura using AMD Radeon™ ProRender for Cinema 4D™

In Cinema 4D R20, Radeon ProRender has been even more deeply integrated into the software, with a set of new features helping the renderer slot seamlessly into standard modern post-production pipelines. “In 2017, we wanted to get Radeon ProRender into our users’ hands. This year, we’re integrating it even more deeply into Cinema 4D,” says Andres Hildebrandt, MAXON’s Vice Director for Marketing. “In Cinema 4D R20, Radeon ProRender supports render layers, subsurface scattering and motion blur. Having those things is a gamechanger.”

The pivotal changes to Cinema 4D are empowering artists with the features they want, and the streamlined workflows they need. MAXON Computer’s and AMD combined effort have created a powerful and integrated render engine.

MAXON Cinema 4D R20 is available now, and you can see it in action by visiting AMD at IBC 2018 from September 14 – 18.

A few decades ago, the PC revolution brought about the mobile office. The evolution of the PC continues to amaze us with ever shrinking form factors that power ever complex applications. The time has come when thin and light will not power that graphics intensive application that we need to run with the performance that we’ve come to expect. Fortunately, one need not choose between performance and mobility as there already exists a solution that offers both and throws in manageability and security for free.

Virtual desktop infrastructures or VDI separates the heavily lifting of rendering an entire desktop and its applications with the relatively light task of displaying that desktop. This separation places the calculation intensive processing in the datacenter, allowing the desktop stream anywhere at any time. The problem of managing individual desktops across different locations simplifies the job of managing consolidated servers and the virtual desktops (virtual machines or VMs) running inside of them. The added benefit is that intellectual property created inside these virtual machines remain secure within the servers.

VDI needs GPUs, but GPUs make sense in datacenters only if they are scalable and the only way to scale a GPU is to virtualize it. AMD’s approach to the GPU virtualization resulted in the industry’s first hardware-based virtualization solution we now call MxGPU technology (short for Multi-User GPU). It is an elegant solution because of its simple implementation. Rather than creating another software layer to manage all the properties and attributes required to enable different users to share graphics resources, AMD designed a whole new class of GPUs and implemented these properties and attributes in silicon. Instead of devising proprietary methodologies in software, we utilized existing hardware standards to build MxGPU from the ground up.

At the core of the MxGPU architecture is a well-established and proven PCIE standard extension called SR-IOV (Single Root I/O Virtualization). This extension defines the specifications for a virtualizable PCIE device that can replicate itself on the PCIE bus. Rules governing what should be implemented in hardware are found in this extension which introduces the concept of the physical function or PF (the physical device) and virtual function or VF (virtual copies of the physical device). The remaining nuts and bolts of how the PF interacts with the VFs completes the MxGPU architecture and is an orchestrated effort between the hardware scheduler implemented in silicon, the host driver that interacts with the PCIE bus and the Radeon Pro driver that is loaded in the virtual machine.

The hardware scheduler is very predictable in its operation. With a very consistent cadence, it assigns the entire GPU’s resources to a particular VF at a particular time slice. Once the VF’s time slice has expired, the scheduler initiates a context save and the active VF relinquishes the GPU resources to the next VF in the queue. By implementing this “fair time slicing” model among the virtual functions, MxGPU asserts a high quality of service (QoS) for all the users sharing the same physical GPU.

It is not by accident that VFs will look and operate like mini physical GPUs once they are assigned to virtual machines. Each VF will carve out its own physical region of frame buffer or video memory. Each VF will appear with device IDs in the operating system’s device manager in its respective virtual machine. Apart from hardware enforced mechanisms implemented to a) restrict one VF’s access to another VF’s data and b) restrict the VF’s ability to change virtualization configuration parameters, the VFs are functionally identical to the parent PF. OpenGL®, DirectX® and even OpenCL® applications running on any AMD graphics cards can be directly ported to virtual machines with MxGPU enabled. To be exact, the same great Radeon Pro drivers developed for AMD’s professional class graphics cards can be used, unaltered, in a virtual environment with MxGPU.

The high QoS to all users sharing the same device, the hardware enforced data and access boundaries, the ability to use native professional graphics drivers and the simplicity of a hardware implementation through an industry standard, makes MxGPU an exceptionally suitable solution to deliver graphics in the datacenter.

Tonny Wong is the Cloud Graphics Product Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third-party sites and references to third-party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third-party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

FOOTNOTES:

DirectX is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the US and other jurisdictions. OpenCL is a trademark of Apple Inc. used by permission by Khronos. OpenGL is a registered trademark of Silicon Graphics, Inc. used by permission by Khronos.

ALLPLAN prides itself on precision, and AMD further increases this with the recent independent certification from Allplan on AMDs entire professional graphics range.

For over 30 years, ALLPLAN has provided software solutions to architects and engineers. With over 20 languages and 240 thousand users, the company prides itself on providing specialist software. Allplan Architecture, is one such BIM tool for building design from the German company. Allowing you to work in 3D, or combined 2D and 3D. The strength of Allplan is its precision across the planning phases, whilst ensuring a secure data exchange with third parties. With a large user base, Allplan is a critical tool within the industry, where reliable graphics performance is key.

Enter AMD’s Radeon™ Pro Series, the professional range of graphics cards (GPUs) for today’s leading Architects and BIM specialists. The Radeon™ Pro range of GPUs offer acceleration and certification for a wide range of popular packages in 2D/3D design, visualization and complex simulation. This list continues to grow and we are excited to announce that ALLPLAN has now joined this list of over 80 applications fully certified and recommended by Independent Software Vendors (ISV’s) like Nemetschek.

“Architects and Engineers are embracing new design processes using 3D modelling technology. This process, known as BIM (Building information modelling), is transforming the construction industry and as a result, our clients rely on the performance of graphics cards to support their everyday design tasks. We are pleased AMD are long-standing partners, and that AMD graphic cards provides performance Allplan users can rely on.” says Kevin Lea, Senior Vice President Product Management ALLPLAN

Both companies understand that you may not be using the latest hardware, so to ensure productivity remains high, Allplan also certified the previous generation AMD FirePro™ professional GPUs, which were replaced by Radeon™ Pro graphics. This ensures maximum compatibility and peace of mind with the latest version of Allplan.

The ‘Certified and Recommended’ status for Allplan covers the entire range from entry level WX 2100 to the high-end WX 9100, as well as the Radeon ProDuo and Radeon Vega Frontier Edition. This offers extensive coverage for Allplan 2015 to 2018, on both Windows 7 64 and Windows 10, providing users with the optimum choice combined with AMD’s price to performance heritage.

This certification is particularly important when you consider Allplan is widely known for its unique multiple-viewport experience, allowing you to view and work within several floating views simultaneously, across multiple displays. No other piece of computer hardware is tested as much as the GPU when working in this way.

Allplan has two ways of displaying data within the viewports, with the advanced functionality, like hardware accelerated shadows, being reserved for OpenGL® 4.2 and DirectX®. (It’s worth noting all AMD professional GPUs offer OpenGL® 4.5 support as standard.)

Allplan uses a more recent version of OpenGL® than typically found in AEC software. As such this places more demands on the GPU, to keep up with its advanced viewport acceleration features, however if you’re not using a Radeon Pro GPU, you can disable these advanced features. By using AMD Radeon Pro graphics you ensure the GPU and software are working together, to drive better viewports and increase graphics performance for the operator when needed.

AMD has a strong commitment to industry leading graphics stability. According to a third-party assessment in 2018 commissioned by AMD, QA Consultants determined that “AMD has the most stable graphics driver in the industry” 1 . This assessment highlights AMDs continued commitment to driver enhancements. 1To download a more detailed version of the report, visit: qaconsultants.com/stabilityaudit.

Like ALLPLAN, Vectorworks has also had a longstanding, collaborative relationship with AMD, both on the CPU and GPU side, testing hardware for compatibility and performance.

As a 3D design and BIM program, Vectorworks makes heavy use of the GPU for the display of CAD and BIM graphics. It recommends at minimum a card with at least 1GB of memory. Luckily the entry-level desktop and mobile GPU from AMD professional graphics has twice this, with 2GB.

For very large projects, particularly when being displayed in modern, large, high resolution displays, users will benefit from Vectorworks multicore support. In the latest Vectorworks release, version 2019, Vectorworks has been enhanced even further, allowing multiple CPU cores to feed information to the AMD graphics card many times faster than before. This is a huge time saver when preforming photo-realistic renderings and make it possible to create smooth real-time walkthroughs of the model.

Vectorworks recommends you keep up to date with graphics drivers. The majority of display problems reported to their technical support department have been traced to older drivers. This is a good recommendation for all your BIM/CAD software and does not apply to Vectorworks only.

“As part of our focus on AEC, we are pleased to partner with ALLPLAN to deliver superior solutions to market. We know that quality and stability are what drive productivity for users. This certification ensures a robust experience, making AMD Radeon Pro and ALLPLAN the ultimate choice for your firm.” – Andrej Zdrakovic, AMD Corporate Vice President of Software and Platform Solutions.

In summary, this latest independent certification for ALLPLAN highlights AMDs commitment to tailoring the GPUs to the software you love, whilst ensuring stability and reliability remain key.

Few people push MAXON Cinema 4D™ harder than Günter Nikodim. Over the past five years, the freelance CG artist has worked on a series of ambitious visual effects sequences for Austrian movies and TV series, ranging from simulating floods and landslides to recreating the city of Vienna in 3D.

“Cinema 4D is the perfect tool for smaller businesses,” says Nikodim. “In most jobs, my highest priority is to deliver things quickly. Cinema 4D has a very streamlined workflow, and good connections to compositing software like Nuke.”

That makes Cinema 4D ideal for Cybertime, the boutique VFX house with which Nikodim often works. For 2016 TV mini-series Das Sacher: In Bester Gesellschaft, set around Vienna’s famous Hotel Sacher, Nikodim and four other artists turned around 200 VFX shots in two months, including a full CG sequence showing the city of Vienna in the background (see the title image): again, created entirely in Cinema 4D.

Created by Günter Nikodim using Radeon ProRender for Cinema R20

Recently, Nikodim has been pushing the stability of AMD Radeon™ ProRender, AMD’s physically correct GPU renderer, to its limits. In his work as a beta tester, he has been trialing the new Radeon ProRender features in Cinema 4D R20 on his own personal test scene: a production-quality model of a T-Rex dinosaur. Again, the asset was modeled, painted, rigged and animated entirely in Cinema 4D: Nikodim originally created it to test the sculpting tools in Cinema 4D R14 and has been updating it steadily ever since.

Created by Günter Nikodim to demonstrate the new Subsurface Scattering shader inRadeon ProRender for Cinema 4D R20

“The beauty of a GPU renderer like Radeon ProRender is that you have beautiful lighting immediately,” he says. “I could just change the HDRI file to experiment with how the model would look in different environments. You get a first impression extremely quickly.”

MAXON Cinema 4D R20 is available now, and you can learn more at the links below.

AMD continues its support of nurturing talent and knowledge within the Autodesk® 3ds Max® community by supporting a key user group in London.

A user group has always been one of the best ways to informally learn from the experience of others, particularly when using software you repeatedly rely on. This ethos remains at the heart of the 3ds London User group, and since its inception over 14 years ago the user group has gone from strength to strength.

From the beginning, the monthly meetup in central London has hosted presentations from many of the UK’s top studios working in architectural visualisation, visual effects, animation, games, architecture and immersive design, as well as most leading software brands in the M&E (Media & Entertainment) and AEC (Architecture, Engineering & Construction) industries.

For those not aware of this unofficial Autodesk® 3ds Max® focused meetup, the gathering attracts an average of 200 attendees all eager to share tips and tricks over a drink. This central London gathering occurs on the first Wednesday of every month allowing users to discuss ideas, technical methods and behind-the-scenes of key projects, whilst enjoying a relaxed and friendly traditional pub atmosphere near the iconic British Museum. Whilst traditional presentations form the backbone of the meetups, what drives people to keep attending is the wealth of knowledge and experience shared within the venues cellar bar.

Although the user group has moved around London in previous years it’s kept a strong following of some of the UK’s biggest brands and studios. The ethos of the user group is to be free to attend and for all abilities. This attitude has kept the sharing of information freely flowing while nurturing new talent within the local community (although it’s not usual for attendees to travel for a number of hours to attend.).

This ‘open to all’ principle is one that is close to AMDs own philosophy by helping to ensure users are not locked into proprietary methods. With it comes some challenges for the user group though, to keep serving its 1300 registered members, the user group needed support. With sponsorships already from a number of local companies, AMD has now become the technology partner of the user group, ensuring the community continues to expand and be supported during its bright future.

“As organizers of 3ds London, we’re thrilled to have the backing and support of AMD as a technology partner. This will allow us to build the best 3D meetup for our community while maintaining the friendly casual atmosphere everyone enjoys.”

– Simon Moir, 3ds London co-organiser.

It is not unusual to see AMD supporting the wider advancements of an industry, and recently became headline sponsor for the 2018 Annual CGarchitect awards, an online competition showcasing the best Architectural Visualisation talent in the world. You can read more about this here and explore the amazing winners’ work.

This commitment from AMD to supporting talent is echoed in the partnership of localised user groups like 3ds London. The ability to do so is of course driven by its hardware adoption and AMD has recently seen a renewed vibrancy within the community of 3D professionals, whether it’s from its ground-breaking CPU offerings like AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ or its high-end GPUs, like the AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 9100 graphics.

For rendering, the 32-core Ryzen™ Threadripper™ desktop processor is the World’s Most Powerful Desktop Processor1 offering blazing fast rendering speeds in industry standard plugins like Chaos Group V-Ray. Its professional range of GPUs continue to gain momentum with the launch of innovative technology like High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) which offers up three times4 more bandwidth per watt than typical GDDR5 memory, and 94% less surface area5 ., which is hugely important when using large project files and textures within tools like Autodesk® 3ds Max®.

You may also be interested in a latest report into AMDs drivers. This new report,2 from QA Consultants3, a Toronto-based software testing and quality assurance firm, has put six of AMD’s most popular cards to the test (high, medium and budget level cards) against the competitive equivalent. QA Consultants found AMD to have “the most stable driver in the industry.”

“The AMD team has recognised the huge potential that 3ds London has to offer all 3D enthusiasts and professionals working in the industry. It’s a fantastic networking event and having AMD as a partner will mean we keep raising the bar for our members.”

– Nigel Hunt, 3ds London co-organiser and SiNi software CEO.

To become a member and be kept informed of the next speakers at the 3ds London User Group, please register with them directly. There is a wealth of information and big plans on being able to share more of this content online with you. Connect with the user group here. The next meetup planned for October features an impressive line-up of speakers, with the likes of RealtimeUK making a welcome return to the group. You can see a full list on the previous meetup page link.

For those reading this further afield, you may like to explore the following interview on a high-end London Arch Viz studio and the challenges they face on projects ranging from complex animations to unusual VR. More stories will be added over the next few months. Read the interview.

AMD is proud to support the 3ds London User Group and continue supporting great talent.

Make sure you go and say Hello at the next meetup.

Jamie Gwilliam is a Sr. Market Development Manager for AEC at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied. GD-5

‘3ds London’ is a valued partner of AMD. All imagery is provided by permission of ‘3ds London’.. The information contained in this blog represents the view of AMD or the third-party presenter as of the date presented. AMD and/or the third-party presenters have no obligation to update any forward-looking content in the above presentations. AMD is not responsible for the content of any third-party presentations and does not necessarily endorse the comments made therein. GD-84

Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied. GD-5

Today, we are releasing our latest quarterly AMD Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise driver, 18.Q4, which includes the new Day Zero Application Certification program, updates to the Remote Workstation feature introduced with the 18.Q3 driver (including support for more AMD Radeon™ Pro WX graphics cards), expansion of our unified “One Driver” with support for AMD Radeon™ Graphics, and productivity boosts for enterprise professionals with performance improvements in some key applications.

Additionally, there are updates to Radeon™ ProRender, our powerful physically-based rendering engine – we are adding real-time viewport ray tracing to the Radeon™ ProRender SDK for developers and the Radeon™ ProRender plug-in for PTC® Creo® is now available.

Day Zero Certification Program

All our Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise drivers are designed to be certification ready, and today we are introducing our Day Zero Certification Program, which means many professional applications will be certified before the latest enterprise driver is released 1. That means professionals can enjoy the latest features and improved performance of a newly posted enterprise driver along with the benefits of certification on the day the driver is released.

Enhanced Remote Workstation Features

With the remote workstation IP built into AMD Radeon™ Pro Software you can access the full GPU-accelerated experience of your AMD Radeon™ Pro WX graphics card from virtually anywhere using Citrix® XenDesktop® 7.15+ 2 and Microsoft® Windows® Remote Desktop Services (RDS). With the 18.Q4 driver, we’ve expanded support to include the Radeon™ Pro WX 4100, WX 5100, and newly released WX 8200 (in addition to the originally supported WX 7100 and WX 9100).

Simplified “One Driver” Deployment for ALL

Our customers say that for every enterprise user that creates content with professional graphics cards there are approximately ten who consume that content with consumer graphics cards 3. Because of this, we are now including AMD Radeon™ graphics support in the downloadable Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q4 unified driver package to bring many of the benefits of Radeon™ Pro Software, such as stability and better security, to knowledge workers.

Performance Improvements

When compared to last year’s 17.Q4 driver (for both Media and Entertainment and Design and Manufacturing workflows), Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q4 has up to 13 percent better performance in PTC® Creo® 4, up to 67 percent in Autodesk® Maya® 5, and up to 89 percent better performance in SPECviewperf® 13 Medical-02. 6

Real-Time Viewport Ray Tracing

For more realistic views of designs in professional application viewports, Radeon™ ProRender Real-Time Viewport Ray Tracing takes advantage of the speed of rasterization combined with the visual benefits of ray tracing and is now available in the Radeon™ ProRender SDK for developers to integrate into their application. Contact your AMD ISV Alliance manager for details.

Radeon™ ProRender for PTC® Creo®

Our new freely available plug-in enables designers and engineers to quickly and easily create incredibly rendered visualizations of their products when using PTC® Creo®. It also enables easy exporting of designs to Unreal® Engine for VR visualization when used with the AMD Radeon™ ProRender Game Engine Importer.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. His/her postings are his/her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied. GD-5

We think there’s more to a creative experience than being glued to a cubicle. This challenged us to rethink what a workstation experience could be. An experience that’s the same as in the office: whether you’re at a customer site, traveling, or simply in the comfort of home.

More information about the HPE Edgeline EL4000 Engineering Workstation (EWS) can be found here and information about the HPE – Citrix Alliance here.

Creatives make their best when they’re free to explore. Where will you go?

Emil Salavat, Senior Software Product Management Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. His/her postings are his/her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied. GD-5

Dassault Systèmes® CATIA is one of the premiere software suites used for product development and product lifecycle management (PLM). It has been one of the the CAD leaders in automotive and aerospace in particular. Dassault Systèmes was one of the pioneers of computer-aided design (CAD), and its software has been used to design everything from passenger cars to military jets over the years.

The modern iterations of CATIA, and a host of many other design and simulation tools such as SIMULIA and DELMIA, are all rolled into Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform. These applications have complete interoperability with each other, enabling powerful end-to-end digital continuity and collaborative PLM solutions.

3DEXPERIENCE R2019x was officially released today, and AMD is excited to announce that its Radeon™ Pro WX-series graphics products have already been fully certified by Dassault Systèmes for the new release. For the second year in a row, AMD Radeon™ Pro graphics is primed and ready to power 3DEXPERIENCE on release day.

Certification is a critical requirement for enterprise customers, as it ensures that Dassault Systèmes has tested AMD’s graphics hardware and software for flawless operation with its application suite. 3DEXPERIENCE is a highly complex application, which is why AMD has partnered closely with Dassault Systèmes to guarantee that its graphics products deliver the rock stable functionality that the top 3DEXPERIENCE customers demand.

Antoine Reymond is a Sr. Market Development Manager for Manufacturing at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied. GD-5

How today’s professionals and enterprise workstation users work is rapidly changing. Working remotely regularly is more common place and the adoption of new technologies is transforming CAD/engineering, visualization and prototyping, and content creation workflows. One tool that is an effective solution to help improve productivity and creativity is video capture. Using video to communicate ideas can help with collaboration, accelerates decision-making, enhances training, and improves customer communication.

Despite its obvious benefits, up until now incorporating video capture into professional workflows has been challenging, with existing solutions either not being designed for workstation use or having too high of a performance penalty. That changed with the release of Radeon Pro Software Crimson ReLive Edition last month, which includes Radeon Pro ReLive software that enables GPU-accelerated capturing and recording of professional workflows with minimal performance impact.

With AMD’s release of the Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q1, Radeon Pro ReLive is now also available for users who require the performance, stability, and rock-solid reliability of our Enterprise Software along with the ability to capture their workflows for collaboration, presentation, training, and customer support.

These are the four key use cases of Radeon Pro ReLive we believe benefit workstation users the most, and we’d like to take you through each of these in more detail to show the benefits that our video capture solution, including its minimal impact on performance, can bring to your workflows.

Collaboration

Sharing ideas through collaboration is critical to the success of any creative endeavor, and video has become the ubiquitous medium for communicating ideas in the post-information age internet-based video sharing platforms. When working with others, video is often the most concise way to communicate your ideas — by using Radeon Pro ReLive to capture your workflow, you can enhance your colleagues’ understanding of what you hope to achieve and make it easy for them to help you when you come up against any roadblocks, accelerating the creative process.

A great example of how Radeon Pro ReLive can be used with a workstation media and entertainment application such as Autodesk® Maya®, would be to use ReLive to capture a short video highlighting all the main points of some new attributes you added to an animation so you can more effectively communicate your vision to your team, instead of having to explain it with text and screenshots in an email.

Because ReLive gives you up to 129 percent faster performance in Maya when recording at 60fps than when recording at 30fps with a screen capture application like TechSmith Camtasia1, your colleagues will be able to view your work with negligible quality or performance degradation. Similarly, if you are a designer working with a CAD solution such as Siemens® NX™, you’ll also find that ReLive enables much better performance (up to 148 percent2) when capturing compared to Camtasia.

Presentation

Effectively presenting your work to your company’s decision makers or to customers to update them on its progress is also an integral part of any project, and video can often be the most effective way to do this. With its ability to record audio and add a voiceover for additional explanation, using Radeon Pro ReLive to create the video for your presentation will allow for better decisions to be made, fast.

Complex detailed designs in applications like Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS® can require a lot of system resources and if you want to record a video of your design to show to your senior management you’ll want to use a tool that nominally affects your PC’s performance; Radeon Pro ReLive allows for up to 196 percent better performance in SOLIDWORKS when compared to Camtasia.

Training

In any organization that produces physical products designed with CAD solutions, you’ll find that the majority of users simply need to view the CAD data, rather than have full access to the design software itself. At the same time, when sharing that data, you still want to be showing the actual original product design, rather than a less-detailed representation.

What better way to do this than to use Radeon Pro ReLive to record a video of the product that can be viewed on virtually any device instead of having users open the actual CAD files, which would require additional (and costly) application licenses? When working in the media and entertainment industry, ReLive can be used to record a particularly complex visual effect workflow so additional artists can be trained to duplicate it. The ReLive video capture of a product can also be used to help train external parties by showing them the actual product designs, too.

In addition to being able to record audio for a voiceover, Radeon Pro ReLive can also capture the output from your webcam in a repositionable and resizable window that can be used to add a human presence to the training videos you create.

Customer Support

Using Radeon Pro ReLive to provide customer support is a similar use case to training, in that you can capture and create videos to help with troubleshooting. But when it comes to support, it’s a two-way street, and to effectively resolve an issue the customer also must be able to clearly communicate what the problem is. If they are also using Radeon Pro Software, they can record the issue with ReLive and share the video so the problem can be quickly identified and the case can be closed. Again, the option to be able to record audio and a webcam overlay can allow customers to better communicate their problem to your support team.

Easy In-App Capturing of Professional Workflows

As is evident from the above, Radeon Pro ReLive, AMD’s powerful professional-grade solution for high-resolution screen capture and recording, is the ideal tool for workstation users who wish to improve their creativity and productivity through video capture to collaborate, present, train, and support.

Radeon Pro ReLive is free and integrated within Radeon Pro Settings and can record GPU-accelerated H.265 High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) video at up to 4K resolution4. H.265 video’s smaller (up to 44% smaller compared to H.264 AVC video5 when using ReLive) file size enables faster data transfers when sharing recorded workflows. ReLive includes an intuitive, easy-to-use interface, a repositionable application toolbar, and a resizable and repositionable webcam overlay.

You can read more about Radeon Pro ReLive and download it as part of our latest Radeon Pro Software Crimson ReLive Edition and the Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q1 athttp://www.amd.com/radeonprorelive.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

According to their website, “The South by Southwest® (SXSW®) Conference & Festivals celebrate the convergence of the interactive, film, and music industries.” Virtual Reality has become a big part of SXSW, and this year there are over 80 sessions dedicated to AR and VR. One of the most exciting aspects of VR is how this new medium is transforming the future of newsgathering and giving journalists dramatically new ways to tell stories.

In 2016, AMD collaborated with the Associated Press to tell stories in this new format, producing a series of 360 journalism pieces. At SXSW, the “Virtual Reality: The Next News Experience” panel is taking place today, March 14, from 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Austin Texas Ballroom 5-7. The panel will feature AMD’s Head of VR and Software Marketing Sasa Marinkovic and AP’s Interactive Editor Nathan Griffiths launching a conversation covering the latest advances in immersive journalism, including an overview of AMD’s Radeon Loom 360-degree video stitching technology.

VR in Journalistic Storytelling

In addition to our collaboration with the AP, AMD has been working closely with other leaders in VR journalism. This past December we partnered with Time Inc.’s LIFE VR virtual-reality initiative and HTC to bring you the Remembering Pearl Harbor HTC Vive experience, and we worked with immersive journalism pioneer Nonny de la Peña’s Emblematic Group on the acclaimed Out of Exile: Daniel’s Story. Out of Exile was created with Radeon GPUs, and was nominated for a VR Journalism award at the 2017 Lumiere Awards.

In recognition of the important journalistic work these partners have created, we’ve put together a video featuring Nonny de la Peña, LIFE VR’s Mia Tramz, and AP’s Siri Abrahamson about the importance of how technologies like VR can help journalists tell their stories in a more impactful and immersive way.

According to Nonny de la Peña, VR is important for journalists because it gives them “an opportunity to really create a connection,” and helps create empathy because “if you feel like you are there, you feel like it can happen to you too.” Mia Tramz thinks that the “surprise and awe” that VR can generate is significant, and VR’s “sense of magic even in journalistic storytelling is really important.”

AP’s Siri Abrahamson relates that they are “constantly having to try to find new ways to tell stories and to share news,” and technology like VR “is what helps us to tell those stories better.”

Radeon Loom Adds Immediacy to Immersion

With immediacy being of critical importance to telling many news stories, using technologies to accelerate the creation process is paramount. By using Radeon technology Nonny de la Peña has been able to get stories out publicly quickly that would have previously taken “days and days to get out there."

Radeon Loom takes this to the next level — enabling a new breed of 360-degree video journalists to create the amazing VR journalism stories of tomorrow. While some news stories can wait, in today’s connected world that runs at breakneck speed, many cannot, especially those we consider “breaking news” events.

Radeon Loom addresses the formidable challenges of real-time live stitching of 360 videos, which will allow journalists to show even “breaking news” stories in 360-degree video, creating the ultimate immersive experience of events as they unfold. Imagine how impactful watching the upcoming March for Science and its 395 Satellite Marches in VR will be as they take place across the globe next month!

You can learn more about Radeon Loom at www.amd.com/radeonloom.

VR Lounge

Along with our VR in Journalism panel, AMD will also be showcasing several VR demos and experiences at our VR Lounge that runs from March 14 – 16 at SXSW.

The SXSW AMD VR Lounge is located in the JW Marriott, Room 402 – 110 E 2nd St, Austin, and opens from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday, March 14, and from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Wednesday, March 15 and Thursday, March 16.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

Virtual Reality is transforming the world as we know it and revolutionizing professional workflows for designers, artists, and creators, boosting creativity, enhancing collaboration, and improving productivity. With VR, architects, designers, and engineers can visualize and interact with their creations in ways they never imagined, accelerating design cycles.

Creative professionals in media and entertainment can create the next-generation of immersive experiences for their audiences, take previz to the next level, stitch 360-degree video in real-time, and create VR content in VR. Design and manufacturing professionals can integrate applications supporting CAD and 3D model game engine visualization in VR and virtual prototyping.

Create and Experience VR content — Using the Same Workstation

With Radeon Pro Software’s support for AMD LiquidVR™ technology and Radeon VR Ready Creator1 graphics cards like the Radeon™ Pro WX 7100, professionals can create VR content and assess the VR user experience all on the same workstation.

AMD’s innovative LiquidVR™ technology enables professional VR workflows by simplifying and optimizing VR application creation, enabling compatible Radeon™ Pro graphics cards to unlock features designed to work seamlessly with compatible VR headsets – features like Affinity Multi-GPU for a scalable experience with multiple GPUs, and MultiView Rendering for enhanced performance.

Radeon VR Ready Creator graphics cards and Radeon Pro Software – combined with the right hardware and applications – enables advanced visualization in VR for architects, designers, and engineers. Using tools like our newly announced Radeon ProRender Game Engine Importer, designers can easily import their geometry and materials from CAD applications into game engines such as Unreal Engine and view them in VR, for both internal reviews and to showcase their latest creations, facilitating the next-generation of customer and client engagement.

Being able to interact and manipulate their work with intuitive natural interactions when using suitable gesture-control enabled VR hardware, such as the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift with Touch, allows designers to virtually experience their creations without having to make expensive prototypes. Software like CAVRNUS’ VR solution for collaborative design, interaction, and education (which we demoed at SOLIDWORKS World 2017) eases the barriers that distance creates, allowing teams to interact with and evaluate their design decisions together.

Pro VR for Media and Entertainment

Animators, filmmakers, artists and other creative professionals can also benefit immensely from integrating VR into their workflows. Visual effects (VFX) artists can use VR to take previz to the next level and create immersive interactive virtual walkthroughs of highly complex scenes that can be viewed right on set.

Certified professional applications can be combined with the new breed of tools, such as Unity’s EditorVR, that allow VR content to be created within VR to create tomorrow’s interactive experiences. With Radeon VR Ready Creator graphics cards and Radeon Pro Software, filmmakers can stitch, edit, composite, and review in VR their immersive 360-degree video experiences without interrupting their workflow, all on the same workstation.

Utilizing AMD’s revolutionary Radeon Loom video stitching technology that enables real-time stitching of 360 videos, entertainment, sports, news, and more can be broadcast live in VR, allowing viewers to feel like they are really there. A great example of this was our live stream of the ‘Baahubali2: The Conclusion’ Pre-Release Event, captured in 360 video using our groundbreaking bb360cc Camera and Radeon Loom Technology.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

FOOTNOTES:

1. Radeon VR Ready Creator Products are select Radeon™ Pro and AMD FirePro™ GPUs that meet or exceed the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive recommended specifications for video cards/GPUs. Other hardware (including CPU) and system requirements recommended by Oculus Rift or HTC Vive should also be met in order to operate the applicable HMDs as intended. As VR technology, HMDs and other VR hardware and software evolve and/or become available, these criteria may change without notice. PC/System manufacturers may vary configurations, yielding different VR results/performance. Check with your PC or system manufacturer to confirm VR capabilities. GD-101

2. Radeon Loom is currently in Beta Preview.

Palatov D2 design shown in the images is property of Palatov Motorsport LLC, used with permission.

With the Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q3, AMD is continuing its commitment to giving enterprises the stability, performance, and feature improvements their users need with a new Enterprise Driver release every quarter. Today’s Enterprise Driver 17.Q3 builds on the release of the Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q2 by focusing on power efficiency and more performance improvements in leading professional applications.

Minimize Your Carbon Footprint

Today’s responsible corporations are always looking for ways to go green and minimize their environmental impact. Reducing the power consumption of the IT equipment used by their employees can significantly contribute to an enterprise’s sustainability efforts, and the Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q3 has substantial power efficiency gains over the 17.Q2 driver1.

With the 17.Q3 driver, enterprise users with a Radeon™ Pro WX 7100 in their workstation can expect to see up to 20% lower power consumption2, up to 10% lower GPU temperature3, and up to 5% lower average fan speed4. This all adds up to power efficiency gains that will noticeably reduce a user’s carbon footprint.

With the Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q3, enterprise professionals can expect to see some noteworthy performance improvements in leading professional applications. When tested in Autodesk® 3ds Max® and Autodesk® Maya® using the Radeon™ ProRender plug-in, the Radeon™ Pro WX 7100 delivers up to 5% rendering performance improvement using the 17.Q3 driver when compared to the 17.Q2 driver5,6. When tested with the SPECapc® Siemens® NX 10 benchmark, the Radeon™ Pro WX 7100 delivers up to 7% faster Siemens® NX 10 performance with the 17.Q3 driver versus the 17.Q2 driver7 and up to 9% faster performance in Adobe® Premiere® Pro CC 2017 GPU acceleration.

In addition to the power efficiency and performance improvements detailed above, the Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q3 continues to meet enterprise needs with features like Radeon™ Pro ReLive to capture and record professional workflows, AMD LiquidVR™ technology10 for advanced VR design visualization using game engine integration, and Radeon™ Pro Software’s Prioritized Enterprise Support program11 and 24/7 Radeon™ Pro support12.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

This is a preview of the upcoming Radeon™ Pro Software Crimson ReLive Edition driver for AMD’s new professional graphics cards based on the next-generation “Vega” GPU architecture: the Radeon™ Pro WX 9100 and Radeon™ Pro SSG graphics cards. It will also be compatible with the already-available Radeon™ Vega Frontier Edition cards.

Radeon™ Pro Software is committed to meeting the needs of both professional users and enterprise users, providing stability, performance, and feature Improvements to both. For enterprise users, there is the Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Driver released the 4th Thursday of each quarter, with the latest 17.Q3 version released just this past week on July 27th.

For workstation professionals looking for Radeon™ Pro Software that supports the latest Radeon™ Pro professional graphics products, there is the Radeon™ Pro Software Crimson ReLive Edition driver, and today we are previewing the upcoming Crimson ReLive Edition release for “Vega”-based Radeon™ Professional Graphics cards.

“Vega”-based Radeon™ professional graphics cards take a holistic approach to security with a dedicated AMD Secure Processor built into the silicon that works with Radeon™ Pro Software to facilitate all-day security. As soon as you power on your computer, the onboard AMD Secure Processor performs boot and firmware validation. During use, the AMD Secure Processor works in tandem with Radeon™ Pro Software and Microsoft® Device Guard to help thwart malicious attacks. During shutdown, the AMD Secure Processor continues securing graphics bound IP until device termination.

Work. Swap. Play. With Radeon Pro Software

Radeon™ Pro Software will be optimized for both game development workflows and gaming with the new optional “Driver Options” feature1 found in the upcoming Radeon™ Pro Software Crimson ReLive Edition for “Vega”-based Radeon™ Professional Graphics.

This feature builds on the “Gaming Mode” introduced in the Radeon™ Pro Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.6 driver for the Radeon™ Vega Frontier Edition card, and the chart below shows the differences between “Gaming Mode” and the “Driver Options” feature.

When creating game assets and working with game development tools, game developers will be able to take advantage of the rock-solid reliability of Radeon™ Pro Software. Then when it comes time to playtest and optimize the experience, a “Driver Options” button in Radeon™ Pro Settings will allow seamless switching to one of two installed Radeon™ Software drivers2. To go back to Radeon™ Pro Software will be as simple as a couple of clicks, allowing for rapid switching between professional and gaming software for faster iteration during game development workflows.

As a bonus, professionals who are using “Vega”-based Radeon™ Professional Graphics will also be able to take advantage of this feature to unwind with their favorite game on the same system they were working on. With the Radeon™ Pro Software “Driver Options” enabling the use of the latest WHQL Radeon™ Software driver and the gaming features of Radeon™ Software3, “Vega”-based Radeon™ professional graphics cards will also be able to offer an incredible Radeon™ gaming experience.

Radeon™ Pro Software Crimson ReLive Edition for “Vega”-based Radeon™ Professional Graphics is expected to be available to download with the availability of the Radeon™ Pro WX 9100 and Radeon™ Pro SSG graphics cards.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

AMD and Citrix® collaborate to deliver performance, scalability, security, and availability of virtualized graphics from both public and private clouds.

Virtualized graphics is the last piece of the puzzle for enterprises considering remote workstations or VDI environments. AMD Multiuser GPU (MxGPU) technology is virtualized graphics done right as shared GPU capability is built right into the silicon, helping make it more secure than software virtualization. This approach delivers a consistent, predictable, and cost effective deployment and user experience.

AMD and Citrix have been hard at work enabling MxGPU for Citrix HDX™ and we are happy to announce that with Citrix XenApp® and XenDesktop® 7.13, AMD MxGPU is fully integrated and available. You can download our Radeon Pro Software drivers with HDX support now.

The combination of these technologies from Citrix and AMD gives IT departments the cost-effective performance and scalability necessary to deliver graphics-accelerated virtual desktops and apps to virtually any user, from knowledge workers, to mobile professionals, to designers expecting the same access to the GPU no matter their workload.

This latest announcement by Citrix continues AMD’s momentum in cloud graphics. Enterprises can deploy AMD MxGPU on a number of server platforms from Dell, HP Enterprise, and Supermicro. Combined with our announcements from Google and Alibaba Cloud, our engagement with Citrix demonstrates how hardware-based graphics virtualization can lead the market in performance, scalability, security and availability of virtualized graphics from both public and private clouds.

AMD’s vision is that end users want to run their applications on virtually any device, virtually anywhere with confidence. This vision is coming to life with AMD MxGPU on Citrix. Look for more exciting news about AMD hardware-virtualized graphics in the months to come.

For more information about AMD Virtualized Graphics and Citrix, please visit www.amd.com/citrix.

For more information about AMD MxGPU technology, please visit www.amd.com/mxgpu.

Michael DeNeffe, AMD’s Director of Cloud Graphics and has extensive experience in network computing, and client device technologies. Links to third-party sites and references to third-party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third-party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

AMD is excited to announce that Citrix’s new hypervisor, XenServer 7.2, supports Radeon™ Pro MxGPU (multiuser GPU) in a technology preview. This means that enterprises can preview our AMD FirePro™ S7150x2 GPUs in virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI). To show it off, AMD was at Citrix Synergy 2017 in Orlando, Florida. In our booth was the first public demonstration of XenServer 7.2 running on AMD GPUs. Not only did we show the power and performance of our GPU technology, but did it from 1092 miles away. You see, the demonstration was delivered from a datacenter outside of New York City by AMD technology partner IMSCAD.

The demo was awesome! The complete capabilities of Autodesk apps, Revit, Inventor and AutoCAD were shown off with our AMD FirePro S7150x2 card in an HPE ProLiant DL380 server from IMSCAD’s New York datacenter. Running on Citrix XenServer 7.2, our MxGPU delivered full workstation class performance while being shared four users per GPU. At the other end of the wire, over 1000 miles of it, was an HPE t620 Thin Client powered by AMD Quad-Core APU. So a complete end-to-end AMD solution in full glory!

Our second demo was also extensively remote. Why lug heavy and loud servers to a trade show, when you can show off the AMD’s great technologies from a datacenter. In this demo we ran VMware ESXI 6.5 on a Dell PowerEdge R730 server installed with an AMD FirePro S7150x2. Splitting the GPU by 8 users, we delivered a workstation-class experience for Solidworks 2017. Over 440 miles it ran, to the booth at Synergy to an IGEL thin client also powered by an AMD Quad-core APU. So here’s the net/net: AMD end-to-end, hardware virtualized graphics running XenServer 7.2, workstation performance from the datacenter, delivered elegantly to AMD-powered thin clients. What’s not to love?

Interested?

Any customer who is eligible to upgrade to XenServer 7.2 can start their testing with any host that supports the AMD FirePro™ S7100-series GPUs. To enable XenServer, click here to check out the download and associated release notes. You will also find details via this link on how to submit bugs.

To use Citrix XenServer with AMD MxGPU virtualized graphics technology you will need to download the XenServer GIM Driver and the Radeon™ Pro Software Beta here. You will also find the Citrix Deployment Guide on this page. Be sure to give us your feedback!

*Palatov D2 design shown in the images is property of Palatov Motorsport LLC, used with permission.

Michael DeNeffe, AMD’s Director of Cloud Graphics and has extensive experience in network computing, and client device technologies. Links to third-party sites and references to third-party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third-party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

The talents of Citrix partners are as wide-ranging as the solutions they provide. Systems integrators, Citrix resellers, application developers and service providers for Citrix products have a tribal gathering each year at Citrix Summit. This year in Anaheim, California, AMD joined the party to demonstrate our support for Citrix solutions and collaborate with Citrix partners to deliver graphics from the cloud.

It was clear enterprise customers want virtualized graphics solutions that deliver a high performance, advanced security and consistent user experience at a lower total cost of ownership. This aligns with the value proposition that AMD MxGPU (multiuser GPU) offers to the Citrix install base and the partners that support them.

At Citrix Summit, we demonstrated 2 key use cases. First an application remoting solution with XenApp 7.15 running on Windows Server, delivering a pristine version of Autodesk Inventor from a server outside of New York City. Application remoting is seeing a comeback, we believe, and AMD MxGPU is there to support these use cases.

We also showed XenDesktop 7.15 running on VMware ESXI 6.5. Delivering Windows 10 desktops from the cloud is the new first order of business for many enterprises. Empowering demanding users running design and engineering apps is job one for many enterprise IT teams. AMD is there to support this effort.

Michael DeNeffe, AMD’s Director of Cloud Graphics and has extensive experience in network computing, and client device technologies. Links to third-party sites and references to third-party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third-party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

At AMD, open source is in our DNA. We have a legacy of sharing and contributing to open source projects, applications and supporting industry standards. Our goal is to raise the tide for developers and users, enabling open choice across the board.

In this vein, I am excited to announce the availability of our Virtualized Graphics KVM host driver to the open source community. You can pick it up now at: AMD Drivers and Support.

AMD has made significant progress with our virtualized graphics business in 2017. Many server design wins, and our announcement with Amazon Web Services, illustrates the use of our GPUs running virtually with distributed workloads among multiple users, delivering a consistent solution with great security features for customers.

In a day and age where other companies are requiring proprietary software to run virtual environments and then further charging end user licenses, AMD is going the opposite direction. We embrace open source as a way to promote collaboration and sharing, but most of all, to enable our customers, from cloud providers to server manufacturers, to build products that delight their customers.

So join us in our quest to build a collaborative cloud. Download our open source host driver now and build a GPU environment in the cloud to make your customers happy.

Michael DeNeffe, AMD’s Director of Cloud Graphics and has extensive experience in network computing, and client device technologies. Links to third-party sites and references to third-party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third-party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

AMD MxGPU graphics virtualization technology enables leading Quality of Service (QoS) with performance that is up to nine times more consistent than the competition1.

Reliable, predictable infrastructure is paramount in an enterprise environment. IT managers demand robust QoS to meet the needs of a cloud-connected workforce. AMD Multi-User GPU (MxGPU) technology was designed to meet this demand by delivering a predictable and consistent end-user experience.

A predictable graphics experience for digital workspaces yields value across an organization. IT managers get fewer calls probing unexpected slowdowns. End users know how their workflow will behave and the Program Management Office can practice better business planning through predictable resource allocation.

AMD MxGPU technology, the world’s first hardware-based virtualized GPU solution, is built on industry standard SR-IOV (Single-Root I/O Virtualization) technology and allows up to 16 virtualized users per physical GPU to work remotely.

To learn more about the QoS benefits AMD MxGPU technology brings to your data center, check out the infographic below.

Michael DeNeffe, AMD’s Director of Cloud Graphics and has extensive experience in network computing, and client device technologies. Links to third-party sites and references to third-party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third-party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

This event had a particularly exciting vibe for me as it was packed with genuine end-users of the full Dassault portfolio including CATIA, SOLIDWORKS, SIMULIA, ENOVIA and DELMIA. Also attending were a lot of AMD software and hardware partners.

It was a wonderful opportunity to look at the overall solutions our products enable within the wider ecosystem while focussing on those Dassault users.

It was very insightful to hear about real deployments where our AMD products have been used across PLM deployments to enable a wide range of use cases including:

Surprisingly we were the only GPU vendor exhibiting, so we attracted a large audience. It was great though to be amongst the full spectrum of the Dassault PLM ecosystem rather than a generic cloud or security conference. Major companies present at the show included HP, Dell and Cisco servers and workstations, to Dassault end-customers like Boeing, Proctor and Gamble and Textron.

My speaking session covered “CATIA from the Cloud”, delivering CATIA from the datacenter with virtualized desktops, and the virtualized graphics considerations for the next generation of 3DExperience and PLM deployment, alongside some details of our S7150 products and MxGPU (shared GPU) technologies.

This session was particularly insightful because were joined by Keith Horton from Nordam Aerospace, past president of the COE, who described their virtualized CATIA deployment using Cisco C240M5 servers, AMD FirePro™ S7150x2 server GPUs, Citrix XenServer 7.4 with MxGPU capability, and NICE DCV to manage multiple customer design environments and gain benefits in security, remote working and hardware consolidation.

I found it exciting to see how Dassault users are integrating growing technologies into their processes, especially in areas where we at AMD are also investing in GPU applications such as VR/AR (Virtual / Augmented reality) and to support the demands of generative design for uses such as additive manufacture. During the event a new VR and AR Committee within COE was announced, and I think the discussions that will emerge will be worth watching.

Last, for those of you in Southern California the week of May 8-10, we will be at Citrix Synergy.

Where we’ve partnered with HP in booth #311, where we plan to be showcasing graphical applications such as Solidworks, Autodesk Revit and AutoCad delivered from the cloud to HP thin-clients optimized for Citrix deployments with AMD Embedded APUs.

Hope to see there!

Michael DeNeffe, AMD’s Director of Cloud Graphics and has extensive experience in network computing, and client device technologies. Links to third-party sites and references to third-party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third-party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

Collaboration is the engine for our industry. When companies work together to solve a problem or build something new, magic happens.

This is why I am extremely excited to participate in a collaboration between my company, AMD, Amazon Web Services and Siemens. The result of our work will be on full display at Siemens PLM Connections in Phoenix from June 5 to 7.

We’ve built a way to deliver graphics accelerated, Siemens NX from Amazon AppStream 2.0. With this solution, Siemens NX designers and engineers can build and create their models remotely, keeping huge data sets centralized and secure in the Amazon cloud. Workflows are optimized, teams can collaborate and the cost to manage infrastructure are lowered.

If you are at the show, make sure to attend my session on Tuesday, June 7 at 3pm. I am co-presenting with Paul Brown, Director of Marketing for Siemens NX. We will demonstrate the power and performance of Siemens NX running from Amazon AppStream 2.0 powered by AMD GPUs.

Also, drop by the AMD booth where we will give you a hands-on experience of this solution, plus a technical demo of Siemens NX running on AWS Elastic GPU and delivered with the AWS DCV client.

Looking forward to seeing you at the show.

Michael DeNeffe, AMD’s Director of Cloud Graphics and has extensive experience in network computing, and client device technologies. Links to third-party sites and references to third-party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third-party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

Earlier this summer we previewed our upcoming Radeon™ Pro Software Crimson ReLive Edition driver for AMD’s new professional graphics cards based on the next-generation “Vega” GPU architecture, and we are pleased to announce that Radeon Pro Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.10 for the Radeon™ Pro WX 9100 and Radeon™ Vega Frontier Edition graphics cards is available to download today.

Radeon Pro Software addresses the needs of both enterprise and professional users with quarterly Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver updates and software such as today’s release that supports the latest Radeon Pro “Vega”-based professional graphics products.

Radeon Pro Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.10 is designed to bring out the best from our new “Vega”-based Radeon™ Professional Graphics cards, supporting the new Radeon Pro WX 9100 (available now) and bringing new features to the Radeon Vega Frontier Edition GPUs.

Work. Swap. Play.

The new optional “Driver Options” feature1 found in Radeon Pro Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.10 optimizes the Radeon Pro WX 9100 and Radeon Vega Frontier Edition cards for both game development workflows and gaming by letting you swap from Radeon Pro Software to the latest Radeon™ Software Crimson ReLive Edition for Radeon™ Pro driver (a special version of our Radeon™ Software driver optimized for this feature downloadable from within Radeon™ Pro Settings).

Using “Driver Options”, game developers working with game development tools will be able to take advantage of the rock-solid reliability of Radeon Pro Software, then seamlessly swap to one of two installed Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition for Radeon Pro drivers to playtest and optimize the gaming experience. Swapping back is just a couple of clicks, allowing for rapid switching between drivers for faster iteration during game development workflows.

Of course, as the old saying goes, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy (or Jill a dull girl) so professionals will also be able to take advantage of this feature to unwind with their favorite game on the same system they were working on. With “Driver Options” enabling the use of the latest Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition for Radeon Pro driver, many of the gaming technologies of Radeon Software2 will also be available for the Radeon Pro WX 9100 and Radeon Vega Frontier Edition cards.

Learn how to use Radeon Pro Settings “Driver Options” by downloading the user guide below.

The Radeon Pro WX 9100 and Radeon Vega Frontier Edition cards take a holistic approach to security with a dedicated AMD Secure Processor built into the silicon that works with Radeon Pro Software to facilitate all-day security. The onboard AMD Secure Processor performs boot and firmware validation, works in tandem with Radeon Pro Software and Microsoft® Device Guard to help thwart malicious attacks, and during shutdown, the AMD Secure Processor continues securing graphics bound IP.

Updated Radeon Pro ReLive

Radeon™ Pro ReLive, AMD’s powerful solution for high-resolution screen capture and recording of professional workflows, has been updated and refined in Radeon Pro Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.10. Updates include higher maximum recording bitrate (up to 100 Mbps), camera transparency, improved notifications, and enhanced audio controls. You can learn more about the updated features and how to use Radeon Pro ReLive in the video below.

You can also learn how to use Radeon Pro ReLive by downloading the user guide below.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

FOOTNOTES:

1. The “Driver Options” feature is an optional installation when setting up Radeon™ Pro Software Crimson ReLive Edition, requires Windows® 10, and is available with Radeon™ Pro Software 17.10 for Radeon™ Pro “Vega”-based cards only. Planned for all Radeon™ Pro cards in the future.

Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS is one of the most popular CAD productivity suites and is used by millions of engineering and design professionals across the globe. It has been a mainstay primary toolset in design & manufacturing pipelines for everything from coffee makers to motorcycles, and even to AMD’s very own Radeon™ RX Vega graphics cards.

SOLIDWORKS 2019 started shipping in early October 2018. Continuing the long-standing technology partnership and product alignment between AMD and Dassault Systèmes, Radeon™ Pro WX-series professional graphics cards are now fully certified for this new release on both Microsoft® Windows® 7 and Windows® 10.

Certified Reliability

Graphic-level certification is a critical part of building a productive CAD pipeline, as it ensures that the user’s workstation is rock solid and compatible with new, features and optimizations as new SOLIDWORKS versions come to market. AMD’s engineering teams work very closely with Dassault Systèmes throughout the application development and certification processes to address potential performance optimizations and bugs long before products ship to customers. With a rigorous process for graphics card and workstation-level testing1 and certification, Dassault Systèmes ensures that its customers have peace of mind when picking a certified option from its list of qualified graphics cards and drivers.

New Era of Graphics Performance

Speaking of changes… SOLIDWORKS 2019 brings along hundreds of updates, as is typical for its annual major releases. However, one new feature that is particularly exciting to those working with massively complex assembly projects is the revamping of the SOLIDWORKS viewport graphics engine.

Like many CAD applications, the SOLIDWORKS graphics engine is powered by the industry standard OpenGL 3D graphics API. While all AMD Radeon™ Pro graphics cards support OpenGL 4.6 (the current standard), it is up to each individual software vendor to implement specific individual OpenGL features for their applications. Previous versions of SOLIDWORKS supported features from OpenGL 1.1 to 4.3, which spanned roughly 15 calendar years! While backwards compatibility is important for many enterprise-level customers, it is actually impossible for a customer to run SOLIDWORKS 2019 on graphics hardware from 1997. There is simply no combination of operating system and driver that would allow for this. By dropping backwards compatibility for obsolete OpenGL features, SOLIDWORKS 2019 is able to introduce an updated 3D graphics engine for the viewport that is much better-optimized for modern computer graphics hardware capabilities.

To try the new graphics engine, simply to go Tools > Options > Performance and tick the checkbox at the bottom of the page. Note that there will be a warning popup about the experimental nature of this feature.

NOTE: The new graphics engine is still under development, so performance and stability are not guaranteed for all scenarios. For this reason, the feature is disabled by default as users in mid-production-cycle environments would likely prefer the more time-tested graphics engine for stability.

SOLIDWORKS 2019 Built-in Test

The graph below compares the performance of the legacy graphics engine versus the new graphics engine using SOLIDWORKS’ built-in performance test and a Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 graphics card. There are significant improvements even for the relatively simple models used in this test. With the new graphics engine, performance was improved by up to 65% for simple models.

Working with Massive Assemblies

The performance uplift with the new graphics engine is much more pronounced when working with large assemblies with tens of thousands of parts and millions of triangles in the viewport. The graph below shows the average frame rate for manually rotating a complex aircraft assembly with 17M triangles and over 2400 components. With this complex assembly, viewport performance was improved by up to 3.6x when using the new graphics engine2. The improvement in user experience for this case was rather staggering – it was the difference between having a smooth interactive viewport versus one that was very choppy and not responsive. This kind of difference translates directly to user productivity and can revolutionize workflows by allowing designers to work with increasingly complex assemblies that were simply unpleasant to work with in the past.

Overall, this is shaping up to be an exceptionally exciting feature for upcoming releases of SOLIDWORKS with major ramifications for productivity. AMD is working closely with Dassault Systèmes to further optimize performance and stability of the new pipeline. Keep in mind that the new graphics engine is still in “beta” as of the SP0 release of SOLIDWORKS 2019, but it’s an exciting preview of what’s to come in the near future once it becomes production ready.

Bill Ma is a Product Marketing Manager at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied. GD-5

FOOTNOTES:

1. Testing conducted by AMD as of Oct 11th, 2018 with the AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 8200 on a test system comprising Intel Xeon W-2145 CPU, 64GB memory, AMD driver 18.Q3.1 and Windows 10 Pro v1803. The internal SOLIDWORKS 2019 performance test, with the “enhanced graphics performance” feature enabled, scored 3.4s in the graphics test and 2.3s in the RealView test. With the “enhanced graphics performance” feature disabled, the benchmark scored 5.0s in the graphics test and 3.8s in the RealView test. The “enhanced graphics performance” feature improved performance by 47% in the graphics test and 65% in the RealView test. RPW-245

AMD is the only company in the world that offers both world-class server CPU and GPU technologies. In the enterprise and cloud spaces those technologies come in the form of our AMD EPYC™ CPUs and our AMD Radeon™ Pro GPUs. Inside AMD, we call this combo A + A.

For the datacenter market, A + A is akin to two great musicians with different styles, teaming up as a duet to make something magical. Like David Bowie and Freddie Mercury in the song “Under Pressure”.

At VMworld 2018 in Las Vegas in the AMD booth, we demonstrated how A + A makes an astounding duet. For the first time, we showed a technology demonstration of a virtualized environment driven by an HPE ProLiant DL385 Gen10 from AMD’s Santa Clara, CA datacenter. Inside, the server we have two 32 core, 64 thread Epyc CPUs and a recently announced dual GPU solution based on the “Vega” architecture1, the Radeon Pro V340. The result, an awesome system for virtualized workloads. And a GPU that delivers 33% greater user density than our competition3.

Also, in the booth was our A + A gorilla. It’s a dual Epyc server with 4 Radeon Pro V340s. 8 GPUs (2 per card), each with 56 compute units4 thumping graphics and supported by 2 Epyc 32 core CPUs.

Stop to think about the possibilities of this system in a VDI environment. Each GPU can support 32 VMs, each with 1 GB of ultra-fast memory. That’s 128 workstation-class users per server. Match that with 2 Epyc processors with a combined 64 CPU cores and 128 threads and you get a balanced, beast of a system.

And we doubled down on security. Both pieces of silicon brilliance come equipped with security solutions. The Secure Encrypted Virtualization engine on the Epyc CPU and a built-in security processor in our dual Vega, Radeon Pro V340 GPU.

Exciting stuff. An astounding solution for virtualized workloads. All AMD, all was on display at VMworld.

Michael DeNeffe, AMD’s Director of Cloud Graphics and has extensive experience in network computing, and client device technologies. Links to third-party sites and references to third-party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third-party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

FOOTNOTES

1. “Vega” is a codename for AMD architecture, and is not product name. GD-122

AMD is returning to this year’s Siggraph event that is being held in the beautiful city of Vancouver, Canada. Running from August 12-16th, Siggraph 2018 is a five-day immersion into the latest innovations in CG, animation, VR and more. Be sure to stop by our booth #1101 and witness some of the incredible demos we will have on display.

Check out the recently announced second generation AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ CPU flexing its 32 cores across a wide variety of workflows, including a unique rack-mounted dual-Threadripper system running a virtualized Houdini® VFX production and rendering environment remoted to zero clients. If that doesn’t sound cool, we also have a single Threadripper system that is showcasing the complete workflow process, running Maya viewport interactivity with complex animation rigging, fluid simulation on Bifrost and rendering on Arnold – all on one machine! This is just the tip of what AMD powered solutions can do today.

The real magic begins to happen when you start combining AMD products together. AMD is the only company in the world that offers both high end CPUs and GPUs. When you combine the new Threadripper CPU with a powerful Radeon™ Pro professional graphics card, the ultimate content creation machine is born. Take a look at our GPU-accelerated rendering demo using the latest Blender® Cycles renderer, and see the incredible speed AMD is able to deliver to content creators everywhere.

Not interested in desktop workstation performance? Need something that’s powerful yet portable? On display at our booth is a cloud rendering demo using our AMD Radeon Instinct™ MI25. With the Radeon Instinct MI25 powering the cloud, you can take a thin client or notebook and run Blender on it with exceptional viewport and rendering performance. Alternatively, we are also showcasing Sonnet’s eGPU (external graphics) solution that shows how one can boost their graphics performance on their notebook simply by plugging in the Sonnet eGPU with AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 9100 graphics in it, turning your thin and light notebook in to a desktop workstation powerhouse.

From Threadripper™ to EPYC™ , Radeon™ Pro to Radeon Instinct™ , AMD is sure to have a content creation solution that’s the right fit for you. There are many other interesting and cool demos that will be shown at our booth so be sure to drop by and be amazed!

Warren Eng is a Product Marketing Manager for professional graphics at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied. GD-5

Radeon ProRender is a powerful physically-based rendering engine that enables creative professionals to produce stunningly photorealistic images. Radeon ProRender is fully integrated in Maxon Cinema 4D, the first commercial 3D application with an integrated GPU path-tracing renderer based on the OpenCL® open standard. Radeon ProRender technology is seamlessly integrated into Release 19 with support for Cinema 4D’s standard materials, lights and cameras.

What’s more, Radeon ProRender is now the first production renderer to support Apple’s Metal® 2 API in the recent SP2 update to the macOS version of Cinema 4D R19, as well as in our macOS plug-ins for Blender and Maya, maximizing the potential of GPU-accelerated rendering on macOS.

Radeon ProRender offers cross platform support, supporting AMD GPUs and CPUs as well as those of other vendors, the common denominator that they are running OpenCL®. Radeon ProRender harnesses both GPU and CPU performance for swift, impressive results.

OpenCL is a trademark of Apple Inc. used by permission by Khronos Group, Inc.

Daniel Skrba, Marketing and Communications Specialist for the Radeon Technologies Group at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies, or opinions. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied.

Welcome to the Tesseract Project, a workstation I designed with the purpose of being a 3D-4K product design rendering machine. The Tesseract Project has been an ongoing project, built to deliver excellent performance on the common packages I work daily (Autodesk Suite, MAXON and Luxion). This review and breakdown will explore my Tesseract Workstation and the performance it offers for professional applications.

Choosing Workstation Components

I wanted a clear view of the workstation’s purpose before deciding on components. For this system, I needed a high performing CPU that is up to task and within a certain price range. As you may expect, AMD’s Ryzen™ Threadripper™ 1950X was a no-brainer choice for this workload – 16 Cores, 32 Threads, at a very pleasant price. It offers excellent performance on Luxion KeyShot 7 and MAXON Cinema 4D across many engines.

While considering parts for 3ds Max, I needed a very powerful GPU that could perform excellently in OpenCL rendering. AMD’s Radeon Vega Frontier Edition GPUs were a perfect match, especially when combined with the Radeon ProRender rendering engine.

Workflow Experiences

After working on the Tesseract Workstation over the past few weeks, it’s clear how much faster my workflow is now compared to my previous workstation. On KeyShot 7 Pro, I was able to speed up my workflow tremendously. A complex scene with a high poly count is now being rendered in 4K-256 samples with 5 render views on the queue in just over an hour, where the previous workstation took over 2 hours with fewer render views. The additional cores and RAM increased the productivity on KeyShot 7 and the same gains were easily replicated on Autodesk VRED, MAXON Cinema 4D with Arnold and V-Ray Render Engines. I am very surprised with the scalability of those packages when it comes to core count. On the 3ds Max side is where it becomes a little interesting. Radeon ProRender has improved exponentially since its first release. As I have been evaluating the switch to the Radeon ProRender platform for 3ds Max for quite some time, I can quantify much it has improved it terms of materials, render speed, features and most importantly workflow. The Radeon Vega Frontier Edition GPUs are performing exceptionally well as far as I have been able to experience. Acquired in mid-August, the rendering speed and stability has improved significantly with each driver release. Now with Enterprise Driver 17.Q4.1, the overall stability for long time renders is in great shape. It is also worth mentioning that, as this workstation features a multi-GPU setup, Radeon ProRender scales very well when utilizing two cards. I haven’t been able to test beyond two cards, but I am considering it for the foreseeable future.

Building Process

The building process went smoothly as planned with no major issues except for the case size. As seen in the photos, the case is a decent size but unfortunately it is not easy to find a case that is able to host an E-ATX sized workstation. The Thermaltake Tough Power Unit also comes with rather tough power cables that make it a little hard to perform proper cable management in this case. It can be very time consuming if you are not familiar with PC building.

Final Thoughts and Future Upgrades

I am very happy with the end results of this project as it is performing better than I expected. As for future upgrades, the first will be moving this workstation to a bigger case. Following would be adding more RAM for 5K and above 3D product designs. As mentioned previously, I’ve been seriously considering the addition of more GPUs into this workstation. Therefore, in addition to a bigger case, I would take the opportunity to move the system cooling into a closed water loop solution, allowing the system to perform better with long workloads. Thanks for checking out my Tesseract Workstation! I hope my build and experiences brought some inspiration for your future workstation.

Cristiano Siqueira, is a 3D Product Designer and an Electrical Engineer Student. This is a third party testimonial and his postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies, or opinions. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. AMD has not verified the testing of these statements. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. AMD provided Cristiano Siqueira with a motherboard, AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ 1950X and a Radeon Vega Frontier Edition for this workstation.

Making the Best: AMD Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q3 delivers quality, performance, security, simplicity, and lets you work from virtually anywhere.

Today, AMD is releasing its latest quarterly professional software update with the new AMD Radeon™ Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q3 driver, that lets you work from virtually anywhere with its new remote workstation features and provides compelling performance improvements in both media and entertainment and design and manufacturing workflows. Furthermore, its new fan control feature allows you to enhance the performance of your AMD Radeon™ Pro WX graphics cards.

Your Workstation Virtually Anywhere

With AMD Radeon Pro Software for Enterprise 18.Q3, you can now easily access the full GPU-accelerated experience of your AMD Radeon™ Pro WX 7100 or WX 9100 graphics card-powered workstation from virtually anywhere with the new remote workstation IP built into AMD Radeon™ Pro Software when using Citrix® XenDesktop® 7.15+ 1.

You can learn more about AMD’s Remote Workstation feature in this whitepaper.

“The Most Stable Graphics Driver in the Industry”

AMD’s robust stability testing process helps to ensure that AMD Radeon Pro Software delivers enterprise-grade quality and reliability, and a third-party assessment 2 by QA Consultants 3 found that AMD has “the most stable graphics driver in the industry.” Results show that AMD’s drivers are up to 11% more stable than Nvidia’s 4 and that AMD’s Radeon Pro Software is up to 25% more stable than NVIDIA Optimal Drivers for Enterprise 5.

Learn more about AMD’s software stability story by downloading this whitepaper.

Manual Fan Control

You can now manually adjust your AMD Radeon Pro WX graphic card’s fan speed in AMD Radeon™ Pro Settings to optimize airflow in thermally stressful environments, providing up to 2x the performance over default settings for very demanding workloads 8 without impacting the GPU warranty from AMD (as applicable).

Using AMD’s MxGPU technology and AMD Radeon Pro Software, professionals can now render in the cloud with leading-edge digital content creation and design applications such as Maxon Cinema 4D™ and SOLIDWORKS® using virtualization and AMD Radeon™ ProRender.

Download Today

Download AMD Radeon Pro Software for Enterprise Edition 18.Q3 and work from virtually anywhere when using “the most stable graphics driver in the industry.”

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

FOOTNOTES:

1. Citrix® XenDesktop® license and installation of Virtual Delivery Agent (VDA) on the workstation is required.

We’ve announced a powerful new solution with Adobe for demanding 4K, 6K and 8K video workflows that enables seamless editing of popular video formats, accelerating the production process while giving editors unprecedented control of their projects using high-resolution, uncompressed footage. The new version of Adobe® Premiere® Pro CC includes native support for Radeon™ Pro SSG graphics card, representing the most compelling solution for high-resolution video production, supporting 4K, 6K and 8K uncompressed footage with the most popular native camera formats, including ARRI AMIRA, Canon XF and RAW, Panasonic AVC and P2, REDCODE® RAW, and Sony XDCAM, XAVC, and RAW.

What is the problem editing 8K?

Dropped frames during playback and unresponsive scrubbing through the project timeline are common experiences while editing 8K footage. This is because video editing high resolution formats, such as 8K, is very CPU intensive. In this first video I’m trying to playback some 8K (8192×4320 24fps) Red clips with effects applied without the Radeon Pro SSG graphics card implementation.

Smooth uncompressed 8K playback with Radeon Pro SSG Graphics

With the exact same 8K Red clips and effects applied, the uncompressed 8K footage rendered to the Radeon Pro SSG graphics card plays back smoothly without frame drops and scrubbing through the timeline is extremely responsive.

How does it work?

Let’s take a closer look at the native Radeon Pro SSG graphics implementation in Premiere Pro.

One of the main benefits to working with Raw REDCODE footage in Premiere Pro is the ability to adjust the RED Raw metadata (ISO, Color Correction, etc) in application and see the adjustments affect the footage in real time. At this stage of the workflow typical users should be able to play back and edit smoothly using a 1/4 preview resolution. This setting downsamples the preview resolution to trade visual fidelity for playback performance. You can also apply accelerated effects such as fade transitions or Lumetri color adjustments to your timeline.

So far with our workflow we’ve been previewing our timeline at a downscaled 1/4 resolution. To preview the timeline in uncompressed 8K, render all or part of the timeline to the Radeon Pro SSG cache using the “Render In to Out” function. After the render is complete you can smoothly playback or scrub the uncompressed 8K footage.

So that’s a quick look at the new Radeon Pro SSG graphics implementation in Adobe Premiere Pro to accelerate your 8K video editing workflows. For more details on installing and setting up the Radeon Pro SSG graphics card in Premiere Pro for the first time, refer to our in-depth solution guide HERE.

David Tjong, Product Marketing Manager for AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied. GD-5

AMD’s Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Edition is designed to meet the exacting demands of enterprises, with quarterly driver updates that deliver enterprise-grade quality on a consistent basis. Today’s 18.Q2 release continues to provide the reliability, security features, simplicity, and innovations professionals have come to expect of Radeon™ Pro Software, along with performance increases in leading professional applications. In addition, the 18.Q2 driver adds support for the Windows® 10 April 2018 Update.

OEM and ISV Partner testing and a final wave of beta user testing helps ensure the highest-quality enterprise software, and in 2017 this led to zero issues reported by over 99.99% of our customers.

AMD’s extensive ISV application certification testing results in enterprise software that is certified on over 80 of the leading applications professionals use. For our last 18.Q1 Enterprise Edition driver, we had a 100% pass rate for all the certifications we submitted.

You can learn more about AMD’s commitment to Enterprise Edition quality and ISV application certifications here.

Boost Your Productivity by Updating Your Driver

The continuous performance optimizations in every Radeon Pro Software driver update, thanks in part to the close technology partnerships we have with ISV application developers, means you can get new GPU-like performance improvements over the lifetime of your graphics investment2, as shown in the chart below.

For the Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Edition 18.Q2 driver we are delivering significant performance improvements in Dassault Systèmes® CATIA®. The 18.Q2 driver is up to 38% faster when running AMD’s internal benchmark of complex customer models6 and up to two times faster with the AMD internal assembly model benchmark.

Year-Over-Year Performance Improvements

For design and manufacturing applications, the 18.Q2 Enterprise Edition driver when compared to the Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q2 is up to an estimated 47% faster in Siemens NX™ when tested with SPECviewperf® 12.1 snx-028, up to an estimated 14% faster in PTC® Creo® when tested with SPECapc® for PTC® Creo® 3.0 9, and up to an estimated 12% faster in SOLIDWORKS® when tested with SPECapc® for SOLIDWORKS® 2015.

For media and entertainment applications, the 18.Q2 Enterprise Edition driver when compared to the Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q2 is up to an estimated 44% faster in Autodesk® 3ds Max® when tested with SPECapc® for Autodesk® 3ds Max® 2015 11 and up to an estimated 22% faster in Autodesk® Maya® when tested with SPECapc® for Autodesk® Maya® 2017.

You can learn more about AMD’s Enterprise Edition performance story here.

Exceptional Security and Unmatched Simplicity

Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Edition 18.Q2 delivers advanced security features to help thwart malicious attacks, giving enterprises added protection for their valuable intellectual property. The Enterprise Edition’s predictable quarterly release schedule (targeting the 2nd Wednesday of the 2nd month of each quarter) makes it easier for IT Managers to plan for their next driver update, with the next Enterprise Edition release scheduled for August 8th, 2018.

The 18.Q2 Enterprise Edition continues to offer a single unified “one driver” available on demand for a variety of AMD graphics hardware used in the workplace 13. With this release we are also supporting the latest version of Windows 10, the April 2018 Update, so your driver is ready when your organization decides to roll out this Microsoft® update.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

Since 2016, AMD has been providing an Enterprise Driver to address the needs of enterprises, helping them plan ahead with quarterly updates that deliver enterprise-grade quality, performance improvements, prioritized 24/7 support1,2, and new features.

To kick off 2018, we’re renaming the Enterprise Driver the Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Edition and today’s release of the 18.Q1 driver contains the quality and reliability, security features, and simplicity professionals have come to expect of our enterprise driver. There are also some significant performance improvements, exciting new features added from the recent Radeon™ Pro Software Adrenalin Edition release, and updated MxGPU virtualization support for Citrix® XenServer®.

Consistent Quality

Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Edition is stress tested for demanding 24/7 environments. Extensive OEM platform testing is designed to deliver the quality that both our technology partners and enterprises demand.

AMD’s comprehensive ISV certification testing results in enterprise software that is certified on the leading ISV applications professionals use and you can see a comprehensive list of all the applications Radeon Pro Software is certified on here.

Performance Improvements

Thanks to the close technology partnerships AMD has with ISV application developers and optimizations performed, Radeon Pro Software is designed so performance gains do not end after the initial purchase of Radeon Pro Graphics.

For design and manufacturing applications, when tested using SPECviewperf® 12.1 catia-04 and SPECviewperf® 12.1 snx-02, Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Edition 18.Q1 is up to 5% faster in Dassault Systèmes® CATIA™3 and up to up to 25% faster in Siemens NX™4 when compared to the Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q1.

For professionals using media and entertainment applications, when tested using SPECapc® for 3dsmax 2015 and SPECapc® for Maya 2017, Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Edition 18.Q1 is up to 47% faster in Autodesk® 3ds Max®5 and up to up to 13% faster in Autodesk® Maya® 6when compared to the Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q1.

In today’s fast-paced business world IT Managers don’t have time to stand still, and anything that can be done to simplify enterprise IT is a godsend. The Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Edition helps deliver that simplicity with a more predictable quarterly release schedule that makes it easier for enterprises to plan their next Radeon Pro Software driver update. In 2018, the Enterprise Edition will be released on the 2nd Wednesday of the 2nd month of each quarter, with the next release after today’s on May 9th, 2018.

Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Edition 18.Q1 continues to offer the single unified “One Driver” for ALL their graphics hardware, whether it be Radeon™ Pro, select AMD FirePro™, or select Radeon™ products used in the workplace. “One Driver” support is available exclusively to enterprise customers, and those wishing to implement it will need to contact their AMD Sales Representative or fill in the request form here. Enterprise professionals who only require Radeon Pro workstation and virtualization support should download our regular 18.Q1 Enterprise Edition driver.

Industry-Leading Innovation

Radeon Pro Software Adrenalin Edition was AMD’s most comprehensive professional software release of 2017, and now enterprise users can take advantage of the innovative new features introduced in this update.

These include an update to Radeon Pro Software’s “Driver Options”7 feature that gives users with supported graphics cards the ability to swap from Radeon Pro Software to the latest Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition for Radeon™ Pro 18.2.1 driver, helping to accelerate game design workflows.

Radeon™ Pro ReLive, a feature that lets professionals record their workflows for collaboration, presentation, training, and support now features borderless region capture for windowed mode recording of professional applications. We’ve added chroma key support so you can use a green, blue, or magenta screen (or a configurable custom color) to remove the background of your webcam overlay when recording.

Citrix XenServer Support

The Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Edition 18.Q1 driver is designed to enable MxGPU support for Citrix VDI and application virtualization deployments with updated technical preview support for Citrix XenServer 7.3 and production support for XenDesktop® and XenApp®.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

FOOTNOTES:

AMD will work with ISV & OEM partners on priority engineering support for Enterprise users.

24/7 support is only guaranteed in English, and is as follows by region:

The “Driver Options” feature is an optional installation when setting up the Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q4, and is compatible with the Radeon™ Pro WX series (desktop only) and Radeon™ Vega Frontier Edition graphics cards, and only supports Windows® 10.

For SIGGRAPH 2018, AMD is updating Radeon™ ProRender with some significant new features, announcing updates to its integration in Maxon Cinema 4D™ and Modo® by Foundry, and releasing new plug-ins for PTC Creo® and Pixar’s USD viewport.

Fast, easy, and incredible, Radeon ProRender is AMD’s physically-based rendering engine with free plug-ins available for popular digital content-creation applications like Autodesk 3ds Max®, Autodesk Maya®, Blender™, and Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS®. It is also integrated into Maxon Cinema 4D™ R19.

At this year’s SIGGRAPH 2018 event, AMD is releasing quite a few updates to Radeon ProRender, including new features, new plug-ins, and updated integrations. Read on for more details about everything that’s new.

Continuing to Accelerate Artists’ Workflows

Earlier in the year, the plug-ins for 3ds Max, Maya 1, and Blender were updated to include an improved Uber Shader for better physically-based rendering workflows, and this shader continues to be developed in the latest plug-in releases. The enhanced Uber Shader now supports diffuse backscattering, has a simplified caustics option, and an improved clearcoat appearance.

AMD Radeon ProRender Diffuse Backscattering

Additionally, an Ambient Occlusion node has been added for enhanced procedural texture workflows, such as making textures look dirty, and Camera Motion Blur has been added to accurately recreate a moving camera when rendering animations. Adaptive Subdivision, previously only available in the plug-in for Blender, has been added to the 3ds Max and Maya 1 plug-ins, allowing artists to easily render complex shapes from simple meshes.

Lastly, optimizations to exporting in all three plug-ins accelerate multi-app workflows when working with large and complex scenes, and the plug-in for 3ds Max has been updated to support 3ds Max 2019.

Updated Integrations

The first content-creation application to natively integrate AMD Radeon ProRender was Maxon Cinema 4D R19, released in 2017, and Maxon recently announced that R20 is scheduled to be released this September with a host of new ProRender features. Some of those include Subsurface Scattering (SSS) for rendering realistic-looking skin, motion blur for animations and deformations, and multi-pass rendering for compositing.

The next application to natively integrate AMD Radeon ProRender will be Modo® by Foundry. AMD and Foundry showed a very early preview of this integration at SIGGRAPH 2017, and now Foundry is excited to announce that the AMD Radeon ProRender public beta is available for Modo Maintenance and Subscription licensees.

Pixar USD and PTC Creo plug-ins

Pixar’s open-source Universal Scene Description (USD) seeks to transform content creation pipelines with “software that addresses the need to robustly and scalably interchange and augment arbitrary 3D scenes that may be composed from many elemental assets.”

Part of the USD toolset is the USDView interactive viewport designed to preview complex scenes. For developers looking to integrate this modern viewport into their application (as Foundry has done in Katana 3.0) AMD is planning to release the code for an open-source Radeon ProRender USD Hydra render delegate plug-in on GitHub that adds path-traced rendering designed for more accurate previews when compared to the default OpenGL® renderer. You can also test drive the USD Hydra plug-in using the pre-built example on our AMD Radeon ProRender download page linked below.

The updated and new AMD Radeon ProRender plug-ins for 3ds Max, Maya 1, Blender, PTC Creo (beta), and USD are available now and you can get them from our AMD Radeon ProRender download page linked below.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

DISCLAIMER

The information contained herein is for informational purposes only and is subject to change without notice. While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this document, it may contain technical inaccuracies, omissions and typographical errors, and AMD is under no obligation to update or otherwise correct this information. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. makes no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this document, and assumes no liability of any kind, including the implied warranties of noninfringement, merchantability or fitness for particular purposes, with respect to the operation or use of AMD hardware, software or other products described herein. No license, including implied or arising by estoppel, to any intellectual property rights is granted by this document. Terms and limitations applicable to the purchase or use of AMD’s products are as set forth in a signed agreement between the parties or in AMD's Standard Terms and Conditions of Sale. GD-18

At AMD, we work hard to solve hard problems. And nothing is more gratifying than to deliver on our mantra “build great products.” The Radeon™ Pro V340 is our latest chapter in bringing to market solutions that solve tough challenges.

In this case, its datacenter graphics. Those GPUs in private or public clouds that handle the acceleration for visualization workloads for engineers, creators, designers and architects. These are professionals that pride themselves on being builders. We built the V340 for builders.

The V340 is a beast. Its a dual-GPU solution based on the advanced AMD “Vega” architecture1, optimized to deliver extreme performance and high user density for virtualized environments. It is the first VDI hardware solution equipped with 32GB of ultra-fast, second-generation high-bandwidth memory, providing massive amounts of memory and bandwidth for today’s most complex design and media workloads.

At VMworld 2018 in Las Vegas we unleashed the beast and gave attendees a demonstration of the industry’s only hardware-based GPU virtualization solution enabled by SR-IOV (Single root – IO Virtualization). We even paired the V340 with a 32 core AMD Epyc CPU for the first time, giving the world a glimpse of what can be build with massive amounts of CPU cores and GPU compute units.

The V340 hardware combined with our software stack comprises AMD’s MxGPU technology. MxGPU stands for multi-user GPU and it does just that. It lets multiple users share a high performance GPU giving them highly secure, deterministic workstation-class performance, delivered from the cloud. With 2 GPUs pounding on 32 GB of HBM2 framebuffer, it supports up to 32 users per card, enabling density and scalability that is second to none.

Michael DeNeffe, AMD’s Director of Cloud Graphics and has extensive experience in network computing, and client device technologies. Links to third-party sites and references to third-party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third-party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

FOOTNOTES

1. “Vega” is a codename for AMD architecture, and is not product name. GD-122

The Dell Precision 7530 and 7730 mobile workstations are the latest additions to the Dell Precision family and have been redesigned to be thinner, lighter, smaller while delivering workstation power, Ready for VR, and performance on the go.

With the new Dell Precision mobile workstations, accelerate heavy workflows with up to 128GB of system memory and optional 3200MHz SuperSpeed memory. Handle graphic or data-heavy applications without interruption with support for up to three 2TB PCIe Solid State Drives (SSDs) on the Precision 7530 and four 2TB PCIe SSDs on the Precision 7730. Work on stunning details with 15.6” and 17.3” UltraSharp 4K UHD displays on the respective Precision 7530 and 7730. Being a part of the Dell Precision workstation family also means that these mobile workstations include data security solutions to help protect your most critical data and are subjected to vigorous and comprehensive testing, ensuring users get the best possible experience out of their system. Dell Precision Optimizer also dynamically adjusts your system settings to maximise application performance.

Available with Radeon™ Pro WX 4150 graphics, the Dell Precision 7530 provides workstation-grade graphics performance for the professional applications most important to you. Many of today’s popular design and manufacturing applications such as Autodesk® Revit®, Siemens® NX® and Dassault Systèmes® SOLIDWORKS® are in the process of being certified on these powerful mobile workstations powered by the Radeon™ Pro graphics, bringing you peace of mind that your application is going to work the way it’s intended to.

The Dell Precision 7730 is also available with Radeon Pro WX 4150 graphics or can be upgraded with Radeon™ Pro WX 7100 graphics to handle complex engineering and design tasks and create fully-immersive AR and VR content. Virtual Reality is transforming the world as we know it and revolutionizing professional workflows for designers, artists and creators, boosting creativity, enhancing collaboration, and improving productivity. With VR, architects, designers, and engineers are able to visualize and interact with their creations in ways never before imagined, accelerating real-time design decisions. Creative professionals in media and entertainment can create the next-generation of immersive experiences for their audiences.

The Dell Precision 7530 and 7730 will be available to purchase on www.Dell.com from June 7th.

David Tjong, Product Marketing Manager for AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied. GD-5

macOS beta versions of the Radeon™ ProRender plug-in for Blender™ and the Radeon™ ProRender plug-in for Maya® are now available for Apple users to download and test today.

Radeon ProRender is our fast, easy, and incredible physically-based rendering engine for CAD designers and 3D artists that is freely available for many popular digital content-creation applications with plug-ins and add-ins for Autodesk® 3ds Max®, Autodesk® Maya®, Blender™, and Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS®. It is also natively integrated into Maxon’s Cinema 4D™ version R19.

Today we are pleased to announce that in addition to the already available macOS™ version of Cinema 4D R19, artists and designers using Apple® hardware can now also benefit from all that Radeon ProRender has to offer when working with Blender and Autodesk Maya by using beta versions of our plug-ins for macOS.

Apple Metal 2 Support

What’s more, Radeon ProRender is now the first production renderer to support Apple’s Metal® 2 API that maximizes the potential of GPU-accelerated rendering on macOS. Metal 2 support is available in the recent SP2 update to the macOS version of Cinema 4D R19 and in today’s beta macOS releases of Radeon ProRender for Blender and Maya.

Radeon ProRender for Blender macOS Beta

You can download the beta of the macOS version of Radeon ProRender for Blender. The final release will include all the features introduced in our latest update to the Windows and Linux versions, including interactive viewport denoising and a simplified PBR shader.

Radeon ProRender for Maya macOS Beta

You can download the beta of the macOS version of Radeon ProRender for Maya. The final release will include all the features introduced in our latest update to the Windows and Linux versions, including the Shadow Catcher material and IES lights support.

Wave image by The Pixelary created using Radeon ProRender for Blender.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

The Radeon™ Pro WX 9100 card is AMD’s flagship workstation graphics solution based on the revolutionary “Vega” GPU architecture. Begin accelerating your workflows using technologies like the High Bandwidth Cache Controller (HBCC), a radically new GPU memory hierarchy that pushes new frontiers in real-time visualization with hyper-realistic rendering techniques. Radeon Pro WX 9100 card, enable you to tackle larger and more complex models through the entire design visualization pipeline.

In addition to cutting-edge hardware, when you purchase a Radeon Pro WX 9100 you’ll have access to our amazing Radeon™ Pro software ecosystem. These tools are there to help improve your workflow experience; for example, you can take your designs and models and move them into VR. With the massive parallel processing capabilities of the graphics processor, you can render a model or scene, and using our Radeon™ ProRender Game Engine Importer tool (Beta), import it into the Unreal Engine to preview and interact with your model in a virtual reality environment. Watch the video below to see this being demonstrated.

One card not powerful enough? Add additional Radeon Pro WX 9100 cards into your system for even more performance. With a multi-GPU setup of up to four Radeon Pro WX 9100 cards, you get greater performance to do demanding tasks like real-time interactive editing of a scene in applications such as the latest version of MAXON’s Cinema 4D (R19) that has support for multi-GPUs and native integration of Radeon ProRender.

For the past few years, Adobe has integrated the Cineware Live 3D pipeline, a key component of Cinema 4D, into After Effects, offering improved workflow and greater performance. We are excited that users can now get access to AE integration of C4D R19 that will allow them to be able to use Radeon ProRender ray-traced GPU renderer from within After Effects. This will effectively allow AE users to be able to create and render accurate physically-based 3D models with C4D leveraging the compute power of the GPU from within their AE environment.

As with every Radeon Pro WX card, you get certified applications with many of today’s top applications across design and manufacturing as well as media and entertainment spaces, regular enterprise driver updates, and 24/7 support1 that you’d expect from professional grade graphics. Built to tackle the most demanding workloads in media and entertainment as well as design and manufacturing, the Radeon Pro WX 9100 card is available today for purchase.

One More Thing!

At AMD, we continually strive to come out with products that shake up the industry. One of these revolutionary products is the new Radeon™ Pro SSG professional graphics card, available now for purchase. The Radeon Pro SSG card is the very first graphics card to have 2TB of memory on board. With access to such vast amounts of memory, users can create high-fidelity real-time VFX pre-visualizations to help inform and make decisions on-the-fly, or work on 8K, VR, 360 video stitching and other highly demanding graphics workloads effortlessly.

If you’re attending the Adobe Max 2017 Creativity Conference (https://max.adobe.com/) in Las Vegas the week of October 16th, come see us at the Community Pavilion, booth#682 where you can check out some amazing demos and workflows powered by the Radeon Pro WX 9100 and Radeon Pro SSG cards.

The HP ZBook 14u and 15u G5 mobile workstations are the latest updates to the HP Z Workstation family, delivering remarkable performance in a thin and light design, allowing professionals to take their work on-the-go. Being a part of the HP Z Workstation family means that these ZBook Mobile Workstations are subjected to more vigorous and comprehensive testing, ensuring users get the best possible experience out of their system.

Equipped with the all new Radeon™ Pro WX 3100 card, the HP ZBook 14u and 15u G5 provide workstation-grade graphics performance, features, and stability for the professional applications most important to you. Many of today’s popular design and manufacturing applications such as Autodesk® Revit®, Siemens® NX® and Dassault Systèmes® SOLIDWORKS® are being certified on these powerful mobile workstations powered by the Radeon™ Pro WX 3100, bringing you peace of mind that your application is going to work the way it’s intended to. With the optional 4K display available on both mobile workstations, you will be able to experience breathtaking visuals and details within your favorite applications – and you don’t have to be tied to a single location in order to do so. With more and more companies expecting their staff to be on site at a building project, next to the race track or simply in your favorite coffee shop, there has never been a better time to explore the flexibility and performance offered from a mobile workstation.

With Radeon Pro graphics, you can unlock features such as Order Independent Transparency (OIT), found in design applications like PTC® Creo® and Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS or the hardware acceleration offered by applications like Autodesk Revit. OIT provides a “pixel-accurate” representation of the model and its surrounding geometry. This creates a more practical, transparent 3D viewpoint for designers to continuously work within, helping improve the designers’ sense of “design intuition” and assisting in better decision-making through the product development stages.

Another feature that gets accelerated by Radeon Pro graphics on some of today’s leading design and manufacturing software is ‘occlusion culling’. AMD has worked closely with application vendors to develop and accelerate this feature on GPUs. Applications that support this feature, such as Autodesk® Revit®, only draw elements that are visible and not those out of view. When the “Draw Visible Elements Only” option is enabled within Revit, users that are manipulating the viewports by orbiting, panning or zooming can see better performance compared with a standard setup where it is disabled. Importantly, the calculations that control this occlusion culling are performed on the GPU rather than the CPU, allowing more powerful GPUs to deliver outstanding 3D performance for the Revit user.

While discussing Revit we know that many users will often split their project files into multiple Revit sessions. With the latest HP ZBook 14u and 15u G5, users can now run much larger projects without worrying about graphics card and system performance. These new HP G5 Mobile Workstations are certainly punching above their predecessors and we understand that it’s not all about the GPU, and are pleased to see this system offering users 32GB of RAM for the complex Revit projects.

During our initial tests with key customers we saw that even complex Revit 2018 projects would open lightning fast, and in some project cases mobile workstations would no longer have noticeable redraws of the files. The project was a substantial file of just over 900MB, much more than a typical users’ scene of 300 to 400MB. However, if you think about your own workflow with your preferred design application, it’s unlikely you will run it without any other package open. In the above example, we ensured our test scenarios matched your real-world setup, with a test session involving multiple industry standard applications open during the one session, including AutoCAD, PDFs and emails. All are surprisingly taxing when used in conjunction on a system. (Although we didn’t spill any coffee on it, which always seems to happen when were out using our mobile workstations.)

These new ultra-portable mobile workstations are tested for altitude, shock, drops, explosive atmospheres, extreme temperatures, sand, humidity and more1. Work confidently anywhere you go, from inside an airplane or local café, to an outdoor jobsite. It is surprising to see just how far mobile workstations have come and they are no longer just for Excel or PowerPoint users. You can now have confidence that a mobile workstation will perform strongly with your favorite 3D intensive design tools. The HP ZBook Mobile Workstations with Radeon Pro graphics are designed to handle the toughest workloads, wherever you may roam.

For more information on the new HP ZBook 14u and ZBook 15u, visit www.hp.com/go/zbook14u and www.hp.com/go/zbook15u

Warren Eng is a Product Marketing Manager for professional graphics at AMD. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied. GD-5

FOOTNOTES

1. MIL-STD-810G testing is not intended to demonstrate fitness of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) contract requirements or for military use. Test results are not a guarantee of future performance under these test conditions. Accidental damage requires an optional HP Accidental Damage Protection Care Pack.

macOS® versions of the Radeon™ ProRender plug-ins for Blender™ and Maya® are now available for artists using Apple® Mac® systems, and support Apple’s Metal® 2 API and external GPUs1 for maximum rendering performance.

Following on from February’s beta releases, we’re excited to announce that, along with the currently available macOS version of Cinema 4D R19, artists using Apple Mac hardware that supports Metal 2 can now use Radeon ProRender with Blender and Maya by downloading our new plug-ins today.

In addition to macOS support, these updates include several new features designed to enhance and accelerate artists’ workflows, and make their lives easier.

Focusing on Artist-Centric Workflows

The macOS Radeon ProRender plug-ins for Blender and Maya include an updated Uber Shader that enables better PBR workflows, with more realistic defaults and enhanced subsurface scattering (SSS) for better skin rendering. There are also improved light and emissive shader controls to create more realistic lighting, including area light shapes, color temperature, and texture maps.

In the plug-in for Blender, there are now more AOV (Arbitrary Output Variables) options, such as reflections and diffuse lighting that can be composited with the final render to enhance it without having to re-render anything. Color space controls have been added to Radeon ProRender Image Map nodes, enabling artists to set the color space to either sRGB or linear, making it easier to work with PBR textures.

Interactive Viewport Denoising

First released in the Windows® version of Radeon ProRender for Blender in December, we are now bringing our interactive denoising technology to the macOS versions of the plug-ins for Blender and Maya. Denoising removes noise from an image while preserving image detail, cutting render times while producing less noisy images.

Radeon ProRender supports denoising of both final renders and of interactive rendering to produce clearer interactive viewport previews, empowering artists to do their look development with a better idea of what the final render might appear as.

New Features in the Blender Plug-In

Along with all the improvements to artists’ workflows enabled by the new features that are available in both our macOS plug-ins, we’re also introducing two brand-new features to the macOS version of the plug-in for Blender.

This plug-in now supports Volumetrics to render advanced effects like smoke, fog, and clouds to create even more realistic images with Radeon ProRender. Additionally, there is improved subdivision of surfaces, with adaptive subdivision that automatically uses distance to calculate how much is needed to smooth an object’s geometry, helping speed up workflows and allowing artists to easily render complex shapes from simple meshes.

Metal 2 Support

As part of Cinema 4D R19 for macOS, Radeon ProRender became the first production renderer to support Apple’s Metal 2 API that maximizes the performance of GPU-accelerated rendering on macOS, with this support available in the recent Cinema 4D R19 SP2 update, and in today’s macOS releases of Radeon ProRender for Blender and Maya.

Available Now

The macOS Radeon ProRender plug-ins for Blender and Maya are available now, require macOS High Sierra 10.13.3 or higher, and support all Apple Mac systems that support Metal 2.

In addition, macOS High Sierra 10.13.4’s new support for external graphics processors (eGPUs) allows macOS Blender and Maya Radeon ProRender users to harness the rendering power of select Radeon™ RX and Radeon™ Pro WX graphics cards on their Macs (such as Radeon™ RX 580, Radeon™ RX Vega64, and Radeon™ Pro WX 9100 GPUs), when used with a compatible eGPU Thunderbolt™ 3 chassis.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

On the first anniversary of the AMD Enterprise Driver program we are releasing our latest Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Driver, 17.Q4, that builds on the great new features introduced with Radeon Pro Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.10 for the Radeon™ Pro WX 9100 and Radeon™ Vega Frontier Edition graphics cards, bringing features such as “Driver Options”1 to enterprises.

One year ago, we launched our Enterprise Driver program with the release of the Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Driver 16.Q4, addressing the needs of both enterprise and professional users with quarterly driver updates that add stability, performance, and feature improvements.

Today’s release reaffirms our commitment to enterprises and our goal of exceeding their needs by delivering enterprise productivity, certifications, and security with the Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q4. This driver combines the prioritized 24/7 support2,3, unprecedented quality and reliability4, and “one driver” feature of our previous enterprise drivers with the innovative new Radeon Pro Software features released last week, such as “Driver Options,” graphics security, and an update to Radeon™ Pro ReLive. In addition, we are improving Radeon Pro Software’s virtualization features, which includes adding support for Citrix® XenApp®.

Radeon Pro Software’s unified enterprise driver lets users effortlessly run professional applications on both physical and virtual machines using the same driver package, substantially simplifying operations for enterprises allowing them to download one driver that meets multiple professional graphics needs. However, enterprises don’t just use professional graphics – many of their users work on hardware with consumer graphics cards, and AMD is the only company that is now offering enterprises a single “one driver” for ALL their graphics hardware, whether it be Radeon™ Pro, select AMD FirePro™, or select Radeon™ products used in the workplace.

AMD is making the Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q4 with “one driver” support available exclusively to enterprise customers, and those wishing to implement it will need to contact their AMD Sales Representative or fill in the request form here. Enterprise professionals who only require Radeon Pro workstation and virtualization support can download our regular 17.Q4 Enterprise Driver posted on AMD.com.

Radeon Pro Graphics Enterprise Security

When using the 17.Q4 driver with the “Vega”-based Radeon Pro™ WX 9100, Radeon™ Pro SSG, and Radeon™ Vega Frontier Edition cards enterprises will be able to take advantage of their holistic approach to security thanks to the dedicated AMD Secure Processor built into the silicon that works with Radeon Pro Software to facilitate all-day security.

Enterprises on VMware vSphere® 6.5 will now also benefit from AMD’s “technical preview” support for Linked Clones virtual machine provisioning. This AMD solution equips IT managers with the tools required to break through the costly resource constraints imposed by Full Clones deployments.

Work. Swap. Play.

The new optional “Driver Options” feature introduced in Radeon Pro Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.10 optimized the Radeon Pro WX 9100 and Radeon Vega Frontier Edition cards for game development workflows by letting you swap from Radeon Pro Software to the latest Radeon™ Software Crimson ReLive Edition for Radeon™ Pro driver (a special version of our Radeon™ Software driver optimized for this feature downloadable from within Radeon™ Pro Settings).

With the Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q4, this feature is now available for more professional hardware and supports the Radeon™ Pro WX series (desktop only) and Radeon™ Vega Frontier Edition graphics cards. The table below shows the features of the two modes available with “Driver Options”.

Using “Driver Options”, game developers working with game development tools will be able to take advantage of the rock-solid reliability of Radeon Pro Software, then seamlessly swap to one of two installed Radeon Software Crimson ReLive Edition for Radeon Pro drivers to playtest and optimize the gaming experience. Swapping back is just a couple of clicks, allowing for rapid switching between drivers for faster iteration during game development workflows.

Learn how to use Radeon Pro Settings “Driver Options” by downloading the user guide below.

Radeon Pro ReLive, AMD’s powerful solution for high-resolution screen capture and recording of professional workflows, has been updated and refined in the Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q4. Updates include higher maximum recording bitrate (up to 100 Mbps), camera transparency, improved notifications, and enhanced audio controls. You can learn more about the updated features and how to use Radeon Pro ReLive in the video below.

You can also learn how to use Radeon Pro ReLive by downloading the user guide below.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

Meet the world’s first, dual-GPU card built to tackle professional design workloads. With the power of two “Polaris” GPUs, the Radeon Pro Duo can use both to accelerate a single workflow, or run individual workflows on each GPU. Earlier this year, we demoed these two scenarios at NAB, the world’s largest annual convention encompassing the convergence of media, entertainment and technology, where attendees had a chance to see the Radeon Pro Duo in action. Colin Travers, a freelance colorist, discusses how the Radeon™ Pro Duo is an ideal solution for creative content creators working in post-production. In the video below, we see Colin taking advantage of the dual GPUs on the Radeon Pro Duo, and here’s what he had to say –

“For guys like me or smaller post shops all around the country and the world, to be able to get one card that gives me the performance of two or three at a fraction of the cost, is a no brainer.”

In this second video, AMD’s Mike Schmit, director of software engineering, showcases the Radeon Pro Duo using Radeon™ Loom, which is revolutionizing 360-degree video stitching. The demo showed one GPU being used to stitch together 360-degree video content while the 2nd GPU was used to warp the image onto a sphere so you could see it in real-time.

If you are looking to increase productivity, and are interested in learning more about the Radeon Pro Duo professional graphics card, please check out the Radeon Pro Duo Product Page for detailed information.

2016 marked the first two Radeon Pro Software releases, our powerful software that lets professionals unleash their creativity with Radeon™ Pro graphics. In October, we released the Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 16.Q4, designed to address the specific needs of enterprise users. This software included the predictable feature, performance, and stability improvements enterprise users need.

We followed in December with Radeon Pro Software Crimson ReLive Edition, our powerful and reliable professional-grade graphics software, that enables high-performance productivity and outstanding stability for designers, content creators, and game developers.

With the start of the new year, we are building on our successful 2016 Radeon Pro Software releases, and today marks the release of our next Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver, 17.Q1, maintaining our commitment to release Enterprise Driver updates on a quarterly basis (future releases will follow on April 27th, July 27th, and October 26th, 2017).

Radeon Pro ReLive can be used with CAD applications, visualization and prototyping software, and content-creation tools for collaboration, presentation, training, and customer support, and more. To read about how Pro ReLive can be used in professional workflows in more detail, please check out our new blog on this topic and watch our video.

One improvement Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q1 brings to Radeon Pro ReLive is a fix for the issue of the mouse cursor appearing to judder at times when recording the desktop.

The Enterprise Driver 17.Q1 also has DirectX® 12 and Vulkan™ support and is ready for the coming real-time game engine professional workflow revolution for real-time previz storyboarding, CAD visualization and Building Information Modeling (BIM), along with support for Windows® 10 Anniversary Update and Windows® 10 Device Guard.

With Radeon Pro Software, AMD is committed to providing all levels of workstation graphics users with high-performance and stable certified professional software. Our quarterly Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q1 is available starting today, and as you have read, incorporates new features like Radeon Pro ReLive, performance and stability improvements, and prioritized support designed to make enterprises and their users more productive.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

FOOTNOTE:

AMD will work with ISV & OEM partners to provide top of the queue engineering support for Enterprise users.

Radeon ProRender is AMD’s high-performance, physically-based rendering engine that enables CAD designers and 3D artists to create incredible renders quickly and easily, and is freely available for many popular digital content-creation applications, with plug-ins and add-ins for Autodesk® 3ds Max®, Autodesk® Maya®, Blender™, and Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS®. It is also natively integrated into Maxon’s Cinema 4D™ version R19.

Building on our successful updates this past October, where we delivered significant performance improvements to both final rendering and interactive viewport rendering, today we are releasing updates to our plug-ins for 3ds Max, Maya, and Blender.

Denoising for Blender

Denoising is a feature that removes noise from an image while preserving image detail. It allows you to cut render times while getting less noisy images. Physically-based path tracing lets you set the number of samples used to render an image. More samples equal a less noisy image but naturally longer render times. By using a denoiser, artists can use low sample counts and get less noisy renders without the long render time.

What our new Radeon ProRender denoiser does is use extra image detail (such as normals and depth data) to determine edges and differentiate between texture detail and noise in the render. It can then filter out between the two, literally finding “the signal in the noise.”

Currently, most other renderers with denoising only do it as a post-process to get less noisy final rendered images. Along with doing the same, Radeon ProRender also supports denoising of interactive rendering and is the first renderer to release this feature. This allows radically clearer interactive viewport renders, allowing the artist to do their look development or shading and lighting with a clearer idea of what the final render might be.

PBR Shader for Blender and glTF Support

First introduced in our Radeon ProRender plug-in for 3ds Max in October, we are now adding a simplified PBR shader to Blender that closely correlates to the shaders used in game engines and streamlines workflows, letting artists and designers work with the 1000’s of freely available PBR materials available online.

The Khronos Group’s glTF (GL Transmission Format) is “a royalty-free specification for the efficient transmission and loading of 3D scenes and models by applications” which is now supported by Radeon ProRender for easy export of assets to other applications while preserving materials.

2018 Version Support and Coming Soon for macOS

Two features we know our users have been asking for are here – our plug-ins for 3ds Max and Maya (for Windows) now support the 2018 versions of these two Autodesk applications and macOS® support is coming soon for our Radeon ProRender Maya and Blender plug-ins.

Get the Updated Plug-ins Now

You can download the latest versions of our Radeon ProRender plug-ins and add-ins from here.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

Radeon ProRender is a powerful physically-based rendering engine that helps enable designers and engineers to produce stunningly photorealistic renderings of their creations.

Radeon ProRender is built on highly efficient, high-performance Radeon Rays technology and unlike some other renderers, it can balance the compute capabilities of multiple GPUs and CPUs on the same system and is built on OpenCL™ to deliver state-of-the-art GPU acceleration to produce rapid, accurate results.

Radeon ProRender provides a simple-to-use, deeply integrated application experience, with an extensive, beautiful material library — all with no licensing costs from AMD, and now we’re taking it to the next level.

At today’s Develop3D LIVE event, we are announcing our new Radeon ProRender Game Engine Importer, currently in pre-alpha, that is designed to help allow for effortless game engine advanced visualization with the power of Radeon Pro GPUs and Radeon ProRender.

Updated Radeon ProRender SOLIDWORKS Add-in Beta

Last year we released our first Radeon ProRender SOLIDWORKS® beta, that supported the 2016 version of Dassault Systèmes’ 3D CAD solution. Today we are pleased to announce that we are kicking off the closed beta release of an updated version of this add-in that supports SOLIDWORKS 2017.

Fully integrated into SOLIDWORKS 2017, it supports real-time changes to your scene and built-in rendering information, and will even work during an animation. Utilizing native lights and materials, it is designed to generate precise renders of your geometry.

Key Features

Fully integrated – for use with SOLIDWORKS 2016 and higher.

Fast and accurate – it’s designed to be physically accurate, lightning fast and easy to use.

Hardware agnostic – if your computer can run OpenCL™ 1.2, it should also be able to run Radeon ProRender.

Viewport Integration means you can work with Radeon ProRender in real time, so you can see your changes as you make them.

Physically correct materials and lighting allow you to make true design decisions with global illumination.

Emissive and Photometric Lighting, as well as lights from HDRI environments, let you blend a scene in with its surroundings.

Interactive viewport camera views with depth of field support and orbit mode to move the camera view around the object through the render window.

Game Engine Visualization in VR with the Radeon ProRender Game Engine Importer

Game engines are revolutionizing professional workflows, allowing designers and engineers to visualize and interact with their creations in ways never before imagined, including in virtual reality, accelerating real-time design decisions.

One of the biggest challenges though for CAD users is importing their work into a game engine with as few mouse clicks as possible for advanced visualization. We have a solution and have worked with Epic Games to create our Radeon ProRender Game Engine Importer, which we first previewed the pre-alpha of at SOLIDWORKS World 2017. The tool allows you to easily import your geometry and materials using Radeon ProRender from applications such as SOLIDWORKS right into Unreal Engine and view them in VR.

We are excited to announce that along with opening applications for our SOLIDWORKS Add-in beta, we will also be giving a select few testers access to the Radeon ProRender Game Engine Importer pre-alpha. When applying below, if you wish to be considered to test this solution please ensure you checkmark which VR headset you own.

Apply Now

If you’d like to participate in our Radeon ProRender SOLIDWORKS Add-in beta testing program and be part of making Radeon ProRender even better, please fill in the application form linked below and select “Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS®” in the application section to express your interest.1

To learn more about Radeon ProRender and download the currently available plug-ins for Autodesk 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya please visit our Radeon ProRender website.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

FOOTNOTES

1 - Applying does not automatically qualify one to be a Radeon ProRender add-in/plug-in beta tester due to a limited number of resources available. Those selected will be contacted directly by AMD for further qualification.

Palatov D2 design shown in the images is property of Palatov Motorsport LLC, used with permission

The latest with AMD and SOLIDWORKS will be on display at Solidworks World 2017 (Booth #501) at the Los Angeles Convention Center where you will be able to join the ultimate VR, VDI, and cloud experiences.

The entire Radeon™ Pro WX workstation family line-up will be displayed this year to show how graphic cards have evolved and how we bring forth an immersive computing experience for design engineers tackling complex design problems.

What to expect this year?

Optimized Graphics Processing

While digital design workflows can open up innovation potential, it’s only possible with the right horsepower. AMD’s new Radeon Pro WX series of GPUs and AMD’s Radeon ProRender rendering engine are designed specifically to address the demanding needs of workstation users, especially those professionals pushing the boundaries of science, technology, and engineering applications.

The new Radeon Pro WX series GPUs are optimized for open source software, undergo extensive independent software vendor (ISV) application and workstation certification testing, and support advances that deliver the highest levels of performance. Based on AMD’s new Polaris architecture designed specifically for speed and energy efficiency, the Radeon Pro GPUs employ the latest advances in AMD’s 4th generation Graphics Core Next architecture, including 4K video decode and encode support, next generation display capabilities and support for open source software through GPUOpen.

AMD has worked closely with SOLIDWORKS® to support their features such as RealView® Graphics real-time shading and self-shadowing functions as well as the transparency mode used in Mate, a SOLIDWORKS feature for joining parts in an assembly and simulating how they fit and move together.

State-of-the-Art Rendering Engine

On top of the new Radeon Pro GPU line, look forward to our latest Radeon ProRender plug-in for SOLIDWORKS, a state-of-the-art, physically-based ray trace rendering engine enabling interactive workflows to produce photorealistic images on heterogeneous computing systems. With its support of the industry standard OpenCL™ API, ProRender can run on virtually any GPU hardware, giving design engineers choices in optimizing a workstation to meet their needs.

Going cloud? We will also be demonstrating a virtualized design environment in the cloud with AMD FirePro™ S7150 GPU delivering virtualized graphics in a secure and cost-effective way for high performance virtual workstations.

If you plan to attend, don’t forget to stop by our session where our subject matter expert, Gary Davis, will be speaking about how to choose the right graphics hardware solution for the task at hand. Date: Monday, Feb 6, 1:30pm – 2:30pm

Visit AMD, DELL, EpiGrid, WakingApp booths to see how our technology partners are using AMD graphics technologies to provide you with the latest user experience for SOLIDWORKS users.

Mayu Ishii is Regional Marketing Manager – Professional Graphics for AMD. Her postings is her own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

AMD’s most comprehensive professional software release of the year takes full advantage of Radeon™ Pro graphics features and performance to deliver high-performance productivity and outstanding stability for artists, visual effects professionals, designers, and engineers.

Today we are releasing a major upgrade to our advanced software suite for Radeon Pro graphics, Radeon™ Pro Software Adrenalin Edition, named after the vibrant Adrenalin Rose, continuing AMD’s commitment to releasing major driver updates annually.

Radeon Pro Software Adrenalin Edition introduces both new features like the all-new Radeon™ Pro Overlay and adds some significant improvements to features released in Radeon™ Pro Software Crimson ReLive Edition, such as updates to Radeon™ Pro ReLive and “Driver Options.”

Radeon™ Pro Overlay’s intuitive interface gives you full control over recording, instant replay, screenshot capture, and region recording (a new Radeon Pro ReLive feature). You can also toggle the microphone and webcam on or off and configure the webcam overlay’s position.

Radeon Pro ReLive

With Radeon Pro Software Adrenalin Edition, the updates to Radeon Pro ReLive are substantial enough that it could have been called version 2.0 of this feature. Radeon Pro ReLive now features borderless region capture for windowed mode recording of professional applications and can now record across multiple monitors.

We’ve added chroma key support so you can use a green, blue, or magenta screen (or a configurable custom color) to remove the background of your webcam overlay when recording. Additionally, you can now capture the microphone audio as a separate track giving you more flexibility when editing your videos.

Updated “Driver Options”

Radeon Pro Software’s “Driver Options” feature4 has been updated in Radeon Software Pro Adrenalin Edition, giving users with supported graphics cards the ability to swap from Radeon Pro Software to the latest Radeon™ Software Adrenalin Edition for Radeon™ Pro driver (a special version of our Radeon Software driver optimized for this feature downloadable from within Radeon™ Pro Settings) and use its gaming features (Radeon™ WattMan is not available on Radeon™ Pro products).

When using the Adrenalin Edition gaming driver in gaming mode, professional users can take advantage of its groundbreaking new features, including the new Radeon Overlay seamless in-game UI and the AMD Link mobile app.

Available for your Android or iOS smartphone or tablet, the AMD Link mobile app complements Radeon Software on the desktop with the AMD Link dashboard featuring streaming and replays with Radeon™ ReLive and performance monitoring.

2018 Enterprise Driver Schedule

We are also announcing our 2018 schedule for the Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver, delivering enterprise productivity, certifications, and security updates every quarter on a predictable schedule. Next year the Enterprise Driver will be released on the 2nd Wednesday of the 2nd month of each quarter, with the first release set for February 14th, 2018.

As of December 1st, 2017, our current Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q4 has over 40 professional application certifications and our commitment to stability means that we are the toughest user of our drivers, and our extensive testing helps ensure that every Radeon™ Pro Software Enterprise Driver has rock-solid reliability.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

The “Driver Options” feature is an optional installation when setting up Radeon™ Pro Software Adrenalin Edition and is compatible with the Radeon™ Pro WX series (desktop only) and Radeon™ Vega Frontier Edition graphics cards and only supports Windows® 10.

Today marks the beginning of the rollout of the Microsoft’s® Windows® 10 Creators Update. Just as Radeon™ Pro is for creators, visionaries, and storytellers — unleashing their creativity, the Creators Update is designed to spark and unleash creativity, and AMD is pleased to announce that we have day zero Radeon Pro Software driver support.

As we’ve demonstrated with our commitment to provide quarterly updates to our Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver, the release of today’s Radeon Pro Software Driver 17.4.2 continues AMD’s mandate to provide professionals prompt production level support for the latest software and technologies. Along with support for the Windows 10 Creators Update, the 17.4.2 driver also brings support for 8K monitors.

For enterprise users, the release of this day zero driver enables them to quickly start evaluating the newest version of Windows, allowing them to accelerate the decision-making process as to when to fully adopt it into their organization and shows that Radeon Pro Software is ready for any of your future business needs.

Windows 10 Creators Update for Professionals

Along with the exciting new features Microsoft has added for gamers in the Windows 10 Creators Update, it also includes more robust security options, something professional and enterprise users will appreciate. Although Windows 10 is already the most secure enterprise platform1, with features like Secure Boot, Device Guard, and Credential Guard that work with Radeon Pro software and hardware to protect your system from unsafe code and malware, the Creators Update includes even more advanced protection.

This includes the new Windows Defender Security Center, which is a single dashboard to control all your security settings from one place, Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) capabilities, and Windows Hello for Business – all designed to keep sensitive IP secure on your workstation.

In addition to enhanced security, Media and Entertainment professionals working with HDR (High Dynamic Range) content will also benefit from the Creators Update’s improved HDR support2 for fullscreen, borderless fullscreen, and windowed applications. Modeled after the acuity of human vision, HDR delivers more vibrant colors and shows more detail with increased saturation, deeper contrast, and increased brightness.

With the Creators Update’s support for immersive experiences, professionals will be ready to add upcoming Windows Mixed Reality apps to their workflows, enabling mixed reality content creation, design visualization, collaboration and more.

Ready for the Next Pixel Revolution

4K displays have become increasing common, and 4K is quickly becoming the new standard for content creation. But in the never-ending march of progress, the status quo is always fleeting. 8K is about to become the new 4K, and Dell has just released the world’s first 31.5″ 8K monitor, the Dell UltraSharp 32 8K Monitor – UP3218K. With a resolution of 7680 x 4320 (that works out to 33.2 million pixels), the UP3218K displays four times more pixels than 4K and sixteen times more pixels than a 1080p display.

This ultra-high resolution is ideal for design reviews where 8K will allow for almost pixel-free visualizations of your creations. Media and Entertainment professionals working in this new format will now be able to create and review 8K content in its native resolution with our upcoming innovative and revolutionary Radeon™ Pro Solid State Graphics (SSG) technology that will enable real-time post-production of 8K video.

To support 8K displays, including the Dell UP3218K, the Radeon Pro Software Driver 17.4.2 enables 8K output on Radeon™ Pro graphics cards with the required hardware support. Currently, this support is limited to the Radeon™ Pro WX series cards that have the necessary DisplayPort 1.4 HBR3/HDR Ready3 display output connectors. 8K is supported at 60Hz with dual cable support (necessary for the UP3218K) and at 30Hz with single cable support.

Future Ready Radeon Pro Software

With Radeon Pro Software delivering timely support for the latest software and technologies professionals can be confident that by using Radeon™ Pro they’ll always be ready for what comes next.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

Effortlessly run professional applications on both physical and virtual machines with the unified Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver and manage AMD MxGPU’s at the host and datacenter level with Radeon Pro Settings for VMware.

Today’s professionals don’t want their creativity constrained by where they are or what device they are working on, and want the freedom to work remotely without compromise. In parallel, businesses are looking for solutions that improve productivity by making their IT easier to manage and more secure, all with a lower total cost of ownership.

AMD’s MxGPU (Multiuser GPU) virtualized graphics addresses all these needs, delivering workstation-class graphics from the data center to virtually any device, virtually anywhere. In addition, virtualization helps ensure that sensitive IP remains secure in the data center, rather than residing outside the firewall on devices that could potentially be compromised.

In combination with Radeon Pro Software, AMD MxGPU virtualized graphics has deterministic performance – delivering the same performance across multiple virtual desktops with the SPECapc® SOLIDWORKS benchmark, while the performance difference between virtual machines using a competing solution is up to 68%1.

Bringing the power of a physical GPU to virtual environments, AMD MxGPU virtualized graphics uses the unified Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q1.1 which lets users effortlessly run professional applications on both physical and virtual machines. That means there are virtually no limits what can or can’t be done in VDI, with full OpenGL®, DirectX®, and OpenCL™ acceleration and full ISV certification for Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS®, PTC Creo®, Siemens® NX™, and more.

AMD MxGPU virtualized graphics delivers superior performance over the competition in these applications too, with up to 35% faster performance in SOLIDWORKS2, up to 38% faster performance in PTC Creo3, and up to 156% faster performance in Siemens NX4.

Radeon Pro Settings for VMware vCenter

With support for VMware® vSphere® 6.0 and higher, system admins will love how easy AMD MxGPU virtualized graphics is to set up. The new Radeon Pro Settings for VMware seamlessly integrated into VMware vCenter allows for management of physical GPUs at the host and datacenter level with a simple and intuitive interface.

Admins can quickly set up a VDI environment, rapidly deploy virtual GPUs to existing virtual machines, and enable hundreds of professionals with just a few mouse clicks depending on the number of GPUs in the system configuration.

Pure Virtualized Graphics

AMD MxGPU enables pure virtualized graphics, keeping it simple, secure and easy to set up with predictable performance. When combined with the unified Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver and Radeon Pro Settings for VMware, AMD makes it easy for IT to choose one flexible, scalable solution to meet a business’s virtualization needs. The best part is there are absolutely no hardware user licensing fees.

Virtual Reality continues to grow with an increasingly powerful stay in the world of storytelling. AMD provides the graphics technology needed to power these immersive worlds and take users through heightened experiences. AMD is bringing its latest in VR and high-end graphics to this year’s VRTO 2017.

VRTO (Virtual & Augmented Reality World Conference & Expo), is Canada’s largest virtual, augmented and mixed reality convention – and the largest on North America’s east coast. AMD will be taking part in VRTO’s headline groundbreaking panel, alongside THE VOID, IMAX and Two Bit Circus. The panel will discuss the future of VR as Out-of-Home public entertainment. AMD’s Ed Callway, Entertainment Architect, will be participating in this panel.

AMD’s Roy Taylor, Corporate Vice President, Content, Alliances & VR, will also be presenting at VRTO. Roy Taylor will discuss innovations and trends for VR over the next 3 years. Prepare yourself for a ride into the near future of VR.

AMD has planned 3 VR demos for attendees to experience:

MasterpieceVR – powered by the AMD Ryzen™ CPU and Radeon™ Pro graphics, and running on HTC VIVE. MasterpieceVR enables aspiring and professional artists to create sophisticated 3D artworks and models in immersive VR environments. AMD will be showing a special preview of the newest version with features designed for creative professionals.

3 Minutes to Midnight – a VR project and a twisted comedy, developed by National Film and Television School (NFTS) Games Design MA graduates, Jameela Khan, Manos Agianniotakis and Laura Dodds. AMD teamed up with NFTS students and graduates by providing them with Radeon™ Pro WX 7100 graphics cards to create immersive VR experiences. AMD has recently strengthened this relationship with the launch of a scholarship.

Radeon™ ProRender Game Engine Importer tool – currently in beta, the importer tool enables importing an asset from a traditional 3D content creation application into a game engine for visualization in VR, while still retaining all its properties, including materials and lighting. The Radeon ProRender Game Engine Importer enables this by allowing the easy import of the geometry and materials of CAD designs from SOLIDWORKS® to Unreal® Engine, where it can be viewed in VR.

Join us at VRTO, being held at Ryerson University’s Faculty of Communications and Design (FCAD) located in Rogers Communication Centre in Toronto, June 24th-26th. Follow us on social media for the latest in immersive technology.

Whether you are using multiple GPUs in a workstation for a complex rendering job visualizing an architectural model in VR, seeing a frozen screen indicating that your graphics driver has crashed can be more than just an inconvenience. It can have real costs such as lost productivity and time. Along with the most requested features and top performance, driver stability has always been one of the core priorities of the drivers supporting AMD’s Radeon GPUs. AMD has conducted independent driver audits in 2005 and 2010 which verified the stability of our drivers in those years.

A new report from QA Consultants, a Toronto-based software testing and quality assurance firm, has put six of AMD’s most popular cards to the test (high, medium and budget level cards from our Gaming and Workstation lines respectively) to see how our driver holds up against a marathon of intense graphic tests. QA Consultants ran identical tests on the six Nvidia graphics cards that correspond most closely to the tested AMD cards.

The Systems:

The tested graphics hardware, drivers and system configurations can be found in the table below:

The Tests:

The team at QA Consultants ran each of the systems through multiple instances of CRASH, a four-hour automated program in Microsoft’s Hardware Lab Kit (“HLK”). CRASH contains a variety of graphical functions across DirectX 9, 10 and 11 including changes in resolution, color settings, screen rotations, color overlays, sleeping and waking up. Each system ran the four hour CRASH test, non-stop 6 times per day back-to-back for 12 days (for a total of 72 runs per system). Completing the entire four-hour CRASH routine would be considered a pass. Any application crashes, hangs or “blue screens of death” would be considered an immediate fail. The overall stability score was derived from the total number of passes divided by the total number of attempts. For simplicity, the results for all AMD and Nvidia systems respectively were aggregated into a single score for each of their drivers.

The Results:

After all tests were run (432 tests across six AMD and six Nvidia systems respectively), AMD systems passed 401 out of 432 tests while Nvidia systems passed 356. This is equivalent to a pass rate of 93% for AMD systems vs a pass rate of 82% for Nvidia systems. According to the QA Consultants report: “AMD has the most stable driver in the industry.”

The Takeaway:

You need to be confident in the graphics processors that are deployed within your organization. At AMD, we take that seriously and always place the highest priority on quality and stability. These independent results validate our processes to deliver the most stable solution.

This also aligns with what we see in the market with our enterprise deployments of Radeon Pro products. We will continue to keep our focus on quality and performance, and be assured that the productivity of your organization is our number one priority.

To download a more detailed version of the report, visit: qaconsultants.com/stabilityaudit.

Andrej Zdravkovic, Andrej Zdrakovic is AMD’s Corporate Vice President of Software and Platform Solutions. His postings are his own opinions and may not represent AMD’s positions, strategies or opinions. Links to third party sites are provided for convenience and unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such linked sites and no endorsement is implied.

AMD’s Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver, with its committed quarterly release cadence, delivers the stability, performance, and feature improvements enterprise users need on a predictable schedule. Today’s Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q2 adds a host of new features and enhancements, building on the addition in January’s 17.Q1 driver of 24/7 Radeon™ Pro Support1 to our Prioritized Support2 program and Radeon™ Pro ReLive for enterprise users.

Radeon Pro Software “One Driver”

Earlier this month, AMD released the first unified Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver that let users effortlessly run professional applications on both physical and virtual machines using the same driver package, substantially simplifying operations for enterprises allowing them to download one driver that meets multiple professional graphics needs. Now with the 17.Q2 Enterprise Driver, AMD is taking this concept one step further with an innovative “one driver” feature.

Enterprises don’t just use professional graphics – many of their users work on hardware with consumer graphics cards, and AMD is the only company that is now offering enterprises a single driver for ALL their graphics hardware, whether it be Radeon™ Pro, select AMD FirePro™, or select Radeon™ products used in the workplace.

As with the unified driver, AMD’s single “one driver” package will help ease deployment for IT admins. It will also allow enterprise professionals to benefit from Radeon Pro Software’s stability, reliability, security, certifications, and performance optimizations when running workstation applications on Radeon™ Pro hardware, and its stability, reliability, and security when running commercial applications on Radeon™-powered hardware such as business notebooks and desktops.

AMD is making the Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q2 with “one driver” support available exclusively to enterprise customers, and those wishing to implement it will need to contact their AMD Sales Representative or fill in the request form here. Enterprise professionals who only require Radeon™ Pro workstation and virtualization support can download our regular 17.Q2 Enterprise Driver posted on AMD.com.

Professional-grade Radeon Pro Software Security

Security is of critical importance for enterprise professionals, who are often working on highly confidential IP that needs to be secure at all times. The suite of Radeon Pro Software security solutions included with the Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q2 helps ensure that your data is continuously protected from potential threats like malware and unsafe code from the minute you start up your workstation until you shut it down.

Cloud Access: For VDI users, whether it be in a private cloud or using an AMD-powered CSP (cloud service provider), AMD’s MxGPU hardware virtualized GPU technology helps secure virtual desktops by both storing sensitive IP securely in the datacenter and by isolating virtual instances at a hardware level.

This “all-day” security model ensures that enterprises can rely on Radeon Pro Software for their most sensitive tasks.

Improved Performance in PTC Creo, Medical, and Energy

The Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q2 delivers some substantial performance boosts for enterprise professionals using VDI when compared with the 17.Q1 driver in PTC® Creo®, medical, and energy workflows. When tested with SPECviewperf® 12.1, the AMD FirePro™ S7150 x2 delivers up to 29% better performance in the PTC Creo-01 viewset benchmark than with the 17.Q1 driver3, up to 33% better performance in the SPECviewperf® 12.1 medical-01 viewset benchmark4, and up to 34% better performance in the SPECviewperf® 12.1 energy-01 viewset benchmark5.

Continued Reliability, and Certifications

For enterprises, stability can be even more important than performance, and Radeon Pro Software enterprise drivers are rigorously tested to help ensure rock-solid reliability and undergo 2x more OEM platform testing, 3x more ISV certification testing, and 1.5x more stress testing than our legacy AMD FirePro™ drivers6. Our professional drivers are also certified in over 100 workstation applications, including Autodesk® AutoCAD®, Dassault CATIA®, Siemens® NX™, Adobe® Premiere®, Avid® Media Composer®, Autodesk® Maya®, and many more.

Radeon Pro Software is Built for Enterprise Professionals

With Radeon Pro Software’s innovative “one driver” support included with the Enterprise Driver 17.Q2, enterprise professionals will now only need a single driver to support all their graphics hardware needs — Radeon™ Pro, AMD FirePro™, or Radeon™ — and still benefit from Radeon Pro Software’s stability, reliability, and “all-day” security features.

In addition, enterprises will continue to benefit from Radeon Pro Software’s rock-solid performance, broad certification, 24/7 Radeon™ Pro support, and features like Radeon Pro ReLive and AMD LiquidVR™ technology7. The Enterprise Driver 17.Q2 demonstrates AMD’s continued quarterly commitment to enterprises and that Radeon Pro Software is built for enterprise professionals.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

FOOTNOTES:

1. 24/7 support is only guaranteed in English, and is as follows by region:

The latest from AMD and Radeon Pro will be showcased this year at NAB Show 2017 from April 22 – 27 in Las Vegas. Radeon Pro will reveal innovations and cutting edge technologies in collaboration with HP, Dell, BOXX, Foundry, Adobe, Avid, Mettle and BlackMagic Design.

AMD will be hosting several booths with Radeon Pro technology in action: booth #SL 7620 in the South Hall, Studio Experience booth #SL 2424 in partnership with HP and Avid Connect and booth #SU 902 sponsored by HP and AMD.

Our Avid Connect booth will be the largest partner booth in the Partner Pavilion, including two AMD keynotes promoting Radeon Pro and an Avid Connect exec panel featuring AMD. There will be several demos running that will allow attendees to experience the power and speed of Radeon Pro’s latest technology.

Dreamed of your very own light saber?

Stop by our booth #7620 and take our online survey to participate in our raffle for a high-end light saber from Ultrasabers or a chance to win the Sony PlayStation® 4 Pro! All participants must be present to win, and raffle terms and conditions will apply. Feel free to ask any AMD staff to make sure you qualify!

If you plan to attend NAB Show, register for the event now. The event will run at the Las Vegas Convention Center and the exhibits will begin on April 24.

Follow us on Twitter for upcoming news from NAB Show and we hope to see you there!

Adding to the longstanding and ongoing pioneering work and collaboration we have been doing with Intel on external graphics solutions over Thunderbolt® 3 with AMD XConnect™ technology which enabled the first hot plug and play support for external graphics, AMD is introducing external GPU (eGPU) support for Radeon Pro WX Series graphics, giving professionals the power and flexibility they need to create wherever and whenever inspiration strikes. Many creative professionals don’t want to be tied to their desktops or locked into proprietary tools, and with AMD’s open ecosystem of software and tools, the new eGPU solution frees people from these limitations.

Working together with Sonnet Technologies, users of compatible mobile workstation can now harness more graphics horsepower for workstation class applications and compute use cases, overcoming the limitations of many standard integrated GPU offerings.

Along with the release of the open-source version of Radeon™ ProRender for developers, at SIGGRAPH 2017 AMD and MAXON are announcing that Radeon™ ProRender will be integrated into the upcoming R19 release of MAXON Cinema 4D.

We are also showing a technology demo of planned future Radeon™ ProRender integration into Modo® by The Foundry, and today we are releasing updated versions of our Radeon™ ProRender plug-ins and add-ins.

Radeon ProRender Renderer is Now Open-source

At SIGGRAPH 2017 we are announcing the open-source availability of the Radeon™ ProRender renderer, an implementation of the Radeon™ ProRender API, for developers looking to add physically-based rendering to their application’s workflow.

Please note, the Radeon™ ProRender plug-ins and add-ins for Autodesk® 3ds Max®, Autodesk® Maya®, Blender™, and SOLIDWORKS® (that are not open-source) have some features which are not currently available in the open-source Radeon™ ProRender package.

You can learn more about the open-source version of Radeon™ ProRender on our GPUOpen blog.

Integration into MAXON Cinema 4D Release 19 (R19)

Yesterday, MAXON announced the latest version of its professional 3D application that includes the integration of Radeon™ ProRender. Cinema 4D Release 19 (R19), coming September 2017, will provide artists cross-platform GPU rendering for both Windows® and macOS® with the seamless integration of Radeon™ ProRender, ideal for product and architectural visualization.

You can learn more about the integration of Radeon™ ProRender into Cinema 4D R19 on MAXON’s website and watch a tutorial video showing how it works on Cineversity, MAXON’s Cinema 4D tutorial and resources website. You can also read more about Radeon™ ProRender in Cinema 4D in this article (PDF) written by AMD’s Rob Jamieson.

Technology Demo of Integration into Modo by The Foundry

We will also be showing at our SIGGRAPH 2017 booth a technology demonstration of the upcoming integration of Radeon™ ProRender GPU-based rendering into Modo® by The Foundry. Radeon™ ProRender for Modo® brings a physically-based GPU rendering engine built on industry-standard OpenCL™ to The Foundry’s 3D modeling, texturing & rendering toolset. The Foundry anticipates the project to go into beta later this year and be available to all current Modo® Maintenance and Subscription customers.

Updates to Radeon ProRender Plug-ins and Add-ins

Today we are releasing updates to three of our currently available Radeon™ ProRender plug-ins and add-ins for leading 3D content creation tools. The Radeon™ ProRender add-in for SOLIDWORKS® will be updated to version 1.0.0.9 with the addition of the following new features:

SOLIDWORKS® car paint appearances are now supported.

Bump mapping on decals is now supported via Normal Maps.

SOLIDWORKS® environment settings can now be overridden from the Settings tab.

Undo / Redo is available within the render window and applies to all settings.

Synchronization of the render window with the SOLIDWORKS® scene can now be toggled to allow a render to continue while the user modifies the model or switches between different model documents. The render will also continue if a model is closed, but the render window controls will be disabled.

Environment lighting (IBL) can now be adjusted independently of SOLIDWORKS® scene ambient light. To adjust IBL intensity, use the “Environment Multiplier” in the Lighting panel in the Settings tab.

Both the Radeon™ ProRender plug-in for Blender™ (Windows® and Linux®) and the Radeon™ ProRender plug-in for Maya® for Windows® will be updated with quality improvements.

To learn more about the Radeon™ ProRender add-in for SOLIDWORKS®, plug-ins for Blender™, plug-in for Maya® for Windows®, and to download documentation and the updates, visit our Radeon™ ProRender website or get them directly below.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

Radeon™ ProRender is our free, fast, and accurate physically-based rendering engine that enables creative professionals to produce stunningly photorealistic images. Along with the plug-ins and add-ins currently available for many popular 3D content-creation applications, Radeon ProRender now offers open-source availability for developers, is integrated into MAXON Cinema 4D Release 19 (R19), and is planned for the Foundry’s Modo in 2018.

Today’s big news is that we’ve made Radeon ProRender even better with improved rendering performance and new features in updated versions of our plug-ins for Autodesk® 3ds Max®, Autodesk Maya® (Windows® version only), and Blender™ and in our add-in for SOLIDWORKS®. The new features include a Shadow Catcher material and IES lights support for the 3ds Max, Maya, and Blender plug-ins, and the SOLIDWORKS add-on now supports SOLIDWORKS 2018.

Performance Improvements

Our updates to Radeon ProRender bring improved performance to both final rendering and interactive viewport rendering. The updated Radeon ProRender plug-in for Blender provides up to 29% faster rendering than the previous version1, the 3ds Max plug-in up to 35%2, the Maya plug-in for Windows up to 28%3, and the SOLIDWORKS add-in up to 14%4. This increased performance allows artists to work faster and gives them more responsive interactive rendering.

Shadow Catcher Material

Available in our updated Radeon ProRender plug-ins for 3ds Max, Maya for Windows, and Blender, the new Shadow Catcher material allows you to collect shadows and reflections from your rendered objects for compositing objects to IBL (Image-Based Lighting) environments or backplate images.

IES Lights Support

Based on real-world lighting files, IES lighting and the ability to load the IES file-format lets you use the exact scattering and fall-offs of real-world lighting. All you have to do is find your lighting manufacturer, find an IES file, attach the IES file to the light, and render. IES lights support is available in the updated Radeon ProRender plug-ins for 3ds Max, Maya for Windows, and Blender.

Simplified Sampling

We’ve made sampling easier in all our plug-ins and add-ins. You no longer have to set AA sampling, now all rendering samples are used for anti-aliasing. This is applies to all the plug-ins and add-ins.

Mech-Spider title image by Theory Studios created using Radeon™ ProRender for Blender™.

Wine Cellar image by The Pixelary created using Radeon™ ProRender for Blender™.

Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

Radeon ProRender provides a simple-to-use, deeply integrated application experience, with an extensive beautiful material library, and all with no licensing costs from AMD.

Blender Plug-in Beta Available Now

Last December we announced that we were planning to release a Radeon ProRender plug-in for Blender™, and today we are excited to announce the release of the closed beta of this plug-in.

Like our other plug-ins, Radeon ProRender for Blender is designed to be a physically-accurate and easy to use renderer that’s integrated into Blender’s viewport so you can work with Radeon ProRender in real-time and see your changes as you make them.

It supports real-time changes to the scene and built-in rendering information, and supports Blender lights, materials, and textures, and renders your geometry accurately. Like our other Radeon ProRender plug-ins, it will come with an extensive material library which artists can use as is, easily adjust within Blender, or even quickly learn to make their own.

Key Features

Fast and accurate – it’s designed to be physically accurate, lightning fast and easy to use.

Hardware agnostic – if your computer can run OpenCL™ 1.2, it can run Radeon ProRender.

Fully integrated – for use with Blender 2.78 and higher.

Viewport Integration means you can work with Radeon ProRender in real time, so you can see your changes as you make them.

VR creation support with photosphere and stereoscopic VR camera views.

Emissive and Photometric Lighting, as well as lights from HDRI environments, let you blend a scene in with its surroundings.

Physically Correct materials and lighting allow you to make true design decisions with global illumination—including caustics, also displacement and volumetrics.

Comes with its own material library optimized for use with the Radeon ProRender Blender plug-in, providing an easy starting and reference point for your own shaders

Integrated materials are simple to use and editable in Blender.

Apply Now

If you’d like to participate in our Radeon ProRender Blender plug-in beta testing program and be part of making Radeon ProRender even better, please fill in the application form linked below to express your interest.1

UPDATE: We are pleased to announce that the Radeon ProRender Blender plug-in will support Linux. However, we will not be supporting this OS during the current beta testing period and there will be a Linux beta available at a later date.

Radeon ProRender Blender Plug-in Mini Tutorial

To get you started with the Radeon ProRender Blender plug-in beta, we’ve put together a short tutorial by Blender power-user Duncan Howdin. This tutorial is for users who already have experience using Blender.

To start, along with the Radeon ProRender beta plug-in, you’ll need to use our example scene that will be provided to beta testers.

Step 1. Setup & Environment

Once you have the Radeon ProRender plug-in installed you’ll need to open the example scene in Blender.

Firstly, you need to change the renderer to “Radeon ProRender” as shown.

You’ll then need to turn on the Radeon ProRender environment and load the “4DstudioLight_2014_1024.hdr” lighting map from the textures folder of the example scene.

Then adjust the intensity to 0.5, and hit f10.

Step 2. Assigning Materials 1

In the example scene, some of the materials have already been assigned, but we still need to assign the material to the body of the car.

Go to material properties and select the “carShell.”

You’ll need to open the material browser to select a paint for the body, so left-click on the material preview to open the browser.

Step 3. Assigning Materials 2

From the material browser, choose “Car Paints” from the categories menu and select the color you want to use, then hit the “RPR Import Selected Material” button.

You’ll then need to assign the rest of the materials that haven’t been assigned.

Step 4. Emissive Materials

Radeon ProRender for Blender has emissive materials, so you’ll need to select the lightbulbs of the car and apply an emissive material to create light for the headlights.

You also need to apply an emissive material to the “Plane” (the lightbox), so open its properties, select “Shader 2,” and turn the intensity to 10.

Step 5. Rendering

Now it’s time to render the scene. Under “Render Presets,” select the output resolution.

Under “RPR Completion Criteria,” change the iterations to 40.

Then hit render.

Step 6. The Finished Result

And your final rendering should look like the above, depending on the paint color you selected.

We hope this short tutorial has given you a basic understanding of how to use the Radeon ProRender Blender plug-in beta. Again, to apply to be a beta tester please fill in the form linked below1.

Duncan Howdin has been working in 3D since 1997, specializing in architectural visualization, and he recently finished study building design. Previously he worked in computer games and animated TV production. With Blender becoming a competitive alternative, he has spent the last year integrating it into his pipeline.

About the author: Alexander Blake-Davies, Software Product Marketing Specialist for Professional Graphics at AMD’s Radeon Technology Group. Links to third party sites and references to third party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.

It’s no secret that most enterprise applications, from standard Windows productivity apps to robust design and engineering apps, run best when they are GPU-accelerated. The number of applications needing graphics acceleration are accelerating rapidly.

So, the challenge is how to deliver these GPU-demanding apps to your most demanding users – CAD engineers, creators, and artists. This can be done locally, with high performance graphics on each workstation. However, this is expensive, and not every designer who could benefit from a graphics workstation may get one. Also, the large datasets – design files and creative drawings, accessed by these users are saved locally or on a file share. This raises security headaches, and challenges IT governance requirements.

Now, remote delivery for graphics from the cloud addresses these challenges. Apps are executed in the cloud and delivered remotely. Also, data can be stored centrally, and securely, right next to where apps are executed in the cloud, providing great performance for viewing and creating new designs on any device, anywhere on the network. I call this secure mobility.

Enabling secure mobility sounds great but doing it efficiently and cost effectively can be a challenge. This is where Amazon Web Services (AWS) and AMD come in.

I’m thrilled that AWS has chosen AMD Radeon Pro MxGPU (multiuser GPU) technology for their new Graphics Design instance type on Amazon AppStream 2.0. Amazon AppStream 2.0 is a fully managed, secure application streaming service that allows you to stream desktop applications from AWS to any device running a web browser, without rewriting them. The new Graphics Design instance type runs on our S7150x2 GPU, the virtualized graphics workhorse of our Radeon Pro graphics product. With Graphics Design instances, users can run graphics-accelerated applications at a fraction of the cost of using graphics workstations and can lower the cost of streaming a graphics app on AppStream 2.0 by up to 50%. These instances are ideal for delivering applications that rely on hardware acceleration of DirectX, OpenGL or OpenCL, such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Autodesk Revit or Siemens NX.

Net/Net: users get professional grade graphics, on-demand, for accelerated apps, at a lower cost. And since they are delivered from the cloud, secure mobility is now a reality.

Michael DeNeffe, AMD’s Director of Cloud Graphics and has extensive experience in network computing, and client device technologies. Links to third-party sites and references to third-party trademarks are provided for convenience and illustrative purposes only. Unless explicitly stated, AMD is not responsible for the contents of such links, and no third-party endorsement of AMD or any of its products is implied. Use of third-party names or marks is for informational purposes only and no endorsement of or by AMD is intended or implied.